A family from Florida was reunited with their cat after evacuating from Hurricane Irma more than a month ago.
The cat, Josephine, ran away while the family stayed in a motel in Lenoir City. She had gotten scared and escape once getting to the motel. The family tried to reach out to local residents about the missing cat.
They said they were overwhelmed by the amount of help the received.
"I don't think I could ever thank them enough, for their time, their effort and just wanting to help," Jane Smith, Josephine's cat mom, said.
A few weeks after Jane and her husband returned to the Clearwater, Florida area, they heard from a Lenoir City resident who may have found their cat.
"It was kind of a rollercoaster because the first time I had seen her, she was afraid of me, of course," Dewey Brown, the man who spotted Josephine, said. "I went back in the postcard that they had sent a picture of Josephine on it. I looked at it and, of course, I was just hoping that it was her."
Josephine the cat had found a barn on Brown's property to stay in. Brown said he kept an eye on her even as she had been afraid of him approaching her. He called Jane's daughter, Elizabeth, and said he thinks he found Josephine.
Elizabeth drove to Brown's home to identify the cat. It was indefinitely Josephine.
"I was just ecstatic, I just could not wait to get up here to finally come see her," Smith said.
The Smith family headed back to Tennessee Saturday to come visit and pick-up Josephine. It's been six weeks since they last saw the orange-and-white tabby.
"I'm just glad there's a happy ending to this story, and that they could be reunited," Brown said.