Ultimate Kitty Rescue Mission

Taken at night with no flash, sorry about the quality

This past weekend, this kitten was rescued out of a sewer in Omaha. I know this because I was one of the people there who helped make this happen. We were alerted to the kitten's presence by the saddest meows ever, and set about finding and helping the kitty.

Once we figured out that the kitty was in the sewer (we think it had been eating an old burrito and fell in), we decided to call fire and rescue. Why? Because we needed to pull the grate out of a storm drain. The city sent us a police car, who then called in the Humane Society. We tried to lure it out with chicken, but the kitty chose not to respond.

Eventually, we just pulled the grate out of the storm drain. Yes, with just sheer willpower. And four dudes. A member of our party jumped down into the storm drain, investigated with a flashlight and reported that the kitty was back by the manhole. Thankfully, the woman from the Humane Society busted out a crowbar and a pair of elbow length leather gloves. We were going to rescue this cat.
We pulled the manhole cover off and another member of our rescue party jumped down into the sewer. He directed the kitten towards the storm grate, where we were waiting with the leather gloves.

The kitty scampered towards the storm grate and was swooped up by the lovely Humane Society employee, who then placed the kitty in a carrier. Kitty was taken to a good home by the member of our party who actually got into the sewer. This is important because, as grateful as I am to the Humane Society for their help, they are a kill shelter and we wanted to do everything possible to make sure the kitty had a great life after being stuck in the sewer.

In summary, the lessons learned from this are:

1. Kitty rescue missions are deeply satisfying.
2. If you are going to be ripping city property out of the street at 2am, it's best to get the police involved. 
3. Have a game plan for who is going to take the kitty home once it is rescued. If someone else hadn't stepped in, I was going to take it home and take it to a no-kill shelter in the morning.

Seriously, if you ever have the chance to help out an animal, take it. It's incredibly fulfilling and you know you are impacting that animal's life in a positive way.