Jackie Mihal had no idea that when she awoke on March 4 morning, she would soon be loading up almost 90 animals and evading a wildfire.
In Panama City, Florida, Mihal is the president of Salty Cats of St. Andrews Rescue, where she takes in stray, feral, and abandoned cats, treats them medically, has them spayed or neutered, and then finds them forever homes.
“We have some that I know will never be adopted unless we find another person like me who’s OK with them never being handled,” Mihal said. “But the majority of them are highly adaptable. They’re spayed, neutered, and ready to go.”
The precise number of animals in Salty Cats’ care varies depending on the time of year and the volume of adoptions. But on the evening of March 4, the organization was at capacity with 86 cats and one rabbit sleeping soundly in the cottage tucked away in Mihal’s backyard. She had just stepped into her backyard that evening to check on the animals when she was met by a wall of flames.
“No warning,” she replies. “None. The whole woods was on fire.”
In that instant, all Mihal knew was that she had 87 animals that needed to be moved. The Adkins Avenue fire would later destroy two nearby homes and damage three more. As fate would have it, Brian Salmon, Scott Morris, and Scott Trunzo, three good Samaritans, were in the area looking to see if anyone needed assistance leaving. They came across Mihal as she was going to kennel her pets.
“The building was being engulfed in smoke,” Mihal says. “I keep all my windows open and the smoke was pouring in. We didn’t know how much time we’d have before the building went up. I never could have gotten it done if [Salmon, Morris, and Trunzo] hadn’t been there.”
Together, the four of them were to establish a rudimentary production line. Salmon, Morris, and Trunzo unloaded Mihal’s filled trailer to transport the animals while Mihal piled cats into cages and delivered them out the door.
They were able to pack all the animals into crates, stack them in the trailer, and move in around 20 minutes, according to Mihal, thanks to the four sets of hands and their combined feeling of urgency.
“I don’t know how we were able to do what we did, but someone was definitely on our side,” Mihal says. “The guys were a big, big help.”
She brought the rabbit and the cats to a friend’s house. Unfortunately, two of the cats died because the shock had shocked them. Two additional cats had minor eye wounds.
While Mihal repaired the smoke-damaged cottage and replaced the toys, blankets, and cat towers covered in smoke and blown ash, the cats stayed at the other location for around ten days.
“Everything had to be tossed out because of the smoke,” she says. “Then we had to wash everything down, repaint, and reseal everything before the cats could come back. We were in there working for about
10 days.”
Now that all her animals are back in the cottage, Mihal appreciates the outpouring of community support.
“It’s been tremendous,” she says. “People are bringing beds and toys and money. We’re still getting towers in. We had about seven towers that had to be tossed. As donations come in, we buy new towers. Someone donated the paint, which was huge. I had volunteers come help me paint. All that plays a huge part for us in terms of being able to continue helping animals.”
It’s excellent news for the kitties she’s helping find their forever homes since, according to her, the outpouring of support has helped her get back up and running faster than she could have dreamed.
“The more people see our name, I hope that they’re going to think of us first [for adoptions],” she says.”But as long as they’re adopting, I don’t care where they’re adopting from as long as cats are finding homes.”
