JIM THORPE, Pa. — About a dozen waterlogged cat climbing trees and beds now sit behind the Carbon County Friends of the Animals shelter waiting to be thrown out.
The shelter in Jim Thorpe, which houses around 200 cats and kittens, flooded Sunday during this weekend's storms.
"We've had rain before, but this is the first time we've experienced this. It was just rushing down the mountain, and it's as just an extreme, crazy thing," said Dana Dunbar, the shelter manager.
Dunbar came in to check on the cats on Sunday and walked in to find nearly the entire building was flooded.
"I was just like, 'Oh, my God, the cats,'" Dunbar said. "The first room I ran down to was the kitten room because I'm thinking, OK, the adults, they're bigger, they know. A lot of them were outside strays brought in. I was like the baby kittens, some of them were born here, so they don't know what water is."
All cats and kittens are OK, and their food and litter weren't ruined from the water. The shelter reopened Tuesday after being closed on Monday as staff and volunteers cleaned up the mess.
The manager tells Newswatch 16 the cat rooms were filled with about four inches of water. That means if the cats and kittens were on the floor, they'd be sitting it. The manager says this is something neither the shelter nor the cats have ever had to deal with.
"They were here all night long, mopping and shop-vacuuming and stopping the worse of it and getting rid of it. It was a humongous job that they did. Thank goodness it would have been a lot worse if they weren't here and didn't come till the next day," said Mary Morton, a volunteer.
The shelter now needs new cat beds, toys, towels, and cleaning supplies like bleach and laundry detergent.
You can help by dropping off donations or a check at the shelter at:
Carbon County Friends of the Animals,
77 West 13th Street,
Jim Thorpe, PA 18229