It had been nine days since a tornado destroyed a three-story office building situated in Kentucky. Sonny “Hoot” Gibson had been standing on the office’s ruins when he thought he heard a faint call for help. It was a soft meow that grabbed his attention as his office cat, Madix, had been missing since before the storms hit. Gibson instantly became hopeful that Madix was not dead after all.
Gibson did look for the solid black cat with yellow eyes soon after the storm but gave after a few days when he could not find anything. “I don’t know how anything could’ve survived not just the tornado but the destruction that came along with it,” he said according to CBS News. But on Sunday everything changed when he heard his kitty, who loved greeting customers at Gibson’s rental business
“I thought I heard a meow, and I thought my mind’s playing tricks on me, so I hollered his name out, and he meowed again,” recalled Gibson, who immediately began sieving through the debris hoping to find the feline. “My knees got so weak, my chest almost got tight. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to have a heart attack here,'” he told WTVF.
Apparently, Madix’s voice was stifled which made it quite difficult for his owner to locate him. Thus, he called some of his employees to help him find the cat. Ultimately, they found him in a hole beneath the rubble. “It was just an incredible feeling to put him in my arms,” expressed Gibson. “If cats actually have nine lives, he probably used up about eight of them in that nine-day period.”
Thankfully, Madix did not suffer any injuries or even a scratch during the ordeal. He was just extremely hungry and thirsty. Gibson quickly gave him food and water to replenish his energy soon after. Madix reportedly had “three bowls of food and drank a whole bowl of water.” Gibson then decided to take him home where he is expected to live out the remainder of his life as a house cat.
The story about Madix’s survival has reached many people all around the town of Mayfield, revealed Gibson. Amid all the death and destruction caused by the tornado in the community, the cat’s story is being viewed as a fresh and positive aspect of it.
“It’s a blessing for people to hear the story so they can take that and realize that great things can come out of terrible situations,” Gibson said according to Daily Mail. “If it’s uplifting to one person, then Madix has served his purpose on this planet.”