Stormy's Rescue (Episode 6)

Photo is of the first cats desexed and housed.  Stormy is back rhs.

 
The sultry day moved on into evening.  Darkness fell.  
Another element crept in to the blackness, unnoticed.  A storm had been building in the west and the first ominous rumble of thunder was sudden, loud and close.

  The kittens!
'They have shelter.' 'they will be alright.'

Tempting fate.

Before we could respond further the storm hit with a ferocious bang.
Lightening lit up the darkness, thunder crashed and the rain came down with a roar, swept by the wind, into hammering relentless sheets of weaponry, great forces  against the windows, doors and roof..

From outside squeals erupted from the kittens, high pitched screams easily heard over the sound of the lashing rain.
We tried to open the front door to get out to them but were driven back by the fury of the deluge sweeping into us, the door wrenched from our hands.
 Outside the squealing continued,   

  Blindly facing the fury, we met it head on with our second desperate attempt, fighting  all the way to get outside.

 In the darkness, Socks huddled in the 'shelter'. Alone. Yoda, pure white,visible and small enough to fit through the wire was caught halfway on his way out of the enclosure.  Even in those desperate moments, being pummeled with heavy rain, Socks wore what seemed to me to be an inscrutable expression of blame.  'You did this'  'Now look.'

The larger kittens were at the other end which puzzled me.  They were fully exposed to the elements and looked half drowned, confused. .  I pulled Yoda from the wire and then started collecting the others into a carrier.  I counted only six.
I went back to Socks, opened another carrier in front of her and was amazed that she jumped in to it.  Remember she was an untouchable cat.

We looked everywhere for the seventh kitten until we had to give up. 
Once inside we took the kittens to the bathroom and bathed them quickly in warm water, dried them and put them in front of the heater in the carrier.

Back outside we went in a fruitless attempt to find the little grey one.  We came back inside, disbelieving that we could have lost her.

I vividly recall sitting on the lounge and saying 'That poor little thing., that poor little thing.'

John stood up  and said 'come on!'   He grabbed the car keys and outside he turned the car headlights on to light up the driveway and encouraged we began to search once more. but there was nothing.   Why did we never have a torch when we needed one?  I looked into the shadows, near the enclosure, I put my hand under it somehow quelling my fear of spiders or other bitey things but could feel nothing.

I ran around the fence into next doors driveway to see if she had been washed under the fence.  I came back around and noticed the solar garden light..  I pulled it out of the ground and ran up the driveway to the enclosure holding it like a giant torch and started to look around the ground when soon I noticed something moving. I saw a tiny form crawling out from underneath the pallet toward the light, soundless, silent, moving toward the light, the size of a mouse.

She's here! I found her!  she's alive!!

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Below, left to right, Giselle, Stormy, Felix, Janie, Yoda and Toya. in front.  Stormy was adopted by an art teacher who I sadly lost contact with.