My father was a firefighter, and his go-to quote every time someone wanted a cat rescued was “How often do you see a cat skeleton in a tree?”
They eventually jump down. They can generally survive terminal velocity falls without injury so long as they land well, which they generally do when they jump out of the tree. But it’s still scary, so it may take them a bit to build up the nerve for the jump.
When I was about 11 I had a cat I loved dearly get stuck in a massive cottonwood tree over my house for 5 days, it was agonizing listening to him cry every day.
My parents were cold and heartless about it and joked that there would be a “cat skeleton tree” in our yard.
I tried everything, finally got an older sibling to help throw a fishing line up and pull up a bucket with wet food. It didn’t make it quite to his limb, but eventually the smell drove him to climb towards it, and from there I was able to coax him down. He was covered in ants and dehydrated but he was fine.
A couple weeks later he ran up a pine tree and got stuck for 4 days again. This time I fashioned a pole and just knocked him off the branch. He fell about 20 feet into a pile of leaves and pine needles and was fine.
Did he ever get stuck another time, or was twice enough?
Yah he learned from the second time, never climbed another tree even as we lived in the woods.
Respectfully, fuck your parents. I’m glad you were there for that cat.
He was my only friend for many years, living in isolated areas and being kept out of school I didn’t have much else besides shitty parents and siblings that just wanted to get high, the whole idea of people being heartless towards innocent beings in need of aid makes my blood run cold and the back of my neck feel hot with anger.
The cat was rescued! Xcel refused to help. Someone in the community finally found a big enough ladder, climbed up to live wires and rescued the cat. Thankfully everyone is safe.
Freaking hero… respect
Has anyone considered that turning off the power might not even be possible without turning it off at hospitals and other critical locations…?
I guess by not turning it off they risked people being electrocuted and possibly result to a brownout within the area, seeing how eventually resulted to bystanders attempting to rescue the cat and a bad PR.
Personally I think it’s just a lapse in risk analysis on the electric company.
I would be astonished if that janky, raggedy wooden pole connects to anything but neighborhood housing.
Say what you mean: “I do not care what is true because what I want to happen is way more important”.
Just adding that these operations are federally regulated to remain in operation. They likely don’t even have the choice if they can’t justify the liability.
Careful, a bunch of downvotes and nasty comments probably are coming your way despite there being a good reason for such regulations.
Lol, I was an electrical product investigator/inspector for 15 years. I’ve dabbled in being a pariah of sorts. But thanks for the heads up! A level head is a balm these days.
all critical locations have huge DC batteries specifically design to take over during a short outage. Then generators.
There would always be a risk any backup systems fail. As another commenter pointed out, in other countries it would be illegal to cut power like that for that kind of reason. And that’s a good thing. Power is literally keeping people alive and shouldn’t be turned off because it seems mean to leave it on.
But a better point is, no one discussing this knows what downstream effects could happen if they killed the power. Seems kind of crazy to me to pretend we do.
If their back up system fails then it’s their fault for not keeping it up to date. Seriously, my husband is an engineer who designs these battery systems. They do not “fail” if they are maintained and replaced properly.
Patently absurd. Technology often fails regardless of what you do. Inviting that failure would be negligence and should be illegal.
The one thing I know for sure about any engineer is that we are intimately familiar with the concept of things failing when it’s least convenient.
We’ve got the Lemmy/Reddit worldview out in force. We should shut down vital infrastructure, risking life safety of many, for a cat. I say this loving cats: that’s silly.
Yeah, I knew when I commented it might get some backlash, but the strength of it is somewhat depressing. Isn’t Lemmy supposed to be mostly rational intelligent people?
I guess it just tells us how commonplace it is for people to declare a risk either worth it or non-existent without a fucking clue about the actual risk they are talking about.
In any case, thank you for demonstrating that there are still some sane people left out there.
Isn’t Lemmy supposed to be mostly rational intelligent people?
Are you fucking insane.
Omg wasn’t this story on reddit a few days ago? Something is off here. Why would the cat simply stay there for 5 days? No cat would just sit there for that long - hunger usually gets the better of them and they risk jumping even if afraid at first. Also why haven’t people done anything about that cat in the days since this was posted on reddit? If that cat really is stuck don’t wait for the fkn electric company, get a fkn ladder and get the cat. Or get a blanket under the pole and prod the cat until it jumps. No one has been doing anything about that cat for 5 days, wtf?? None of this makes any sense
I believe that might have been a different cat on reddit. I believe that one was up there for three days and it was updated they were rescued after the third. But I drink a lot so I’m not sure.
Have you not read the article? People tried, ladders don’t reach, firefighters need Xcel to turn off power.
Edit: Kitty was saved!
Lemmy, looking at an old wooden pole with splinters and hanging wires and old ceramic insulators: “LET THE CAT DIE, THAT THING IS POWERING THE ENTIRE WESTERN SEABOARD, RUSSIA WILL TAKE ADVANTAGE AND INVADE, MILLIONS WILL DIE.”
I hate you all and hope your non-existent girlfriends leave you one day for being heartless and mechanical.
“Leave me alone!”- le cat.
(Don’t think xcell actually needs to turn the power off, but they do need to send a technician in a bucket.)
TIL technicians come in buckets.
(I thought they came in cans)
Aww would be a shame if a pole a few blocks up just ‘failed’ for some reason. :/ The cat could co-incidentally be free to climb down or be rescued during the totally unexpected outage!
If the newspaper article doesn’t get them to do it, then this is the way.
Fuck Xcel Energy.
Most cats can survive terminal velocity. That cat isn’t stuck.
It wouldn’t have been up there for 5 days if it wasn’t
