Owner’s joyful reunion with cat that escaped Grenfell

A GRENFELL Tower survivor has been reunited with her pet cat months after she had believed it had perished in the fire.

Kerry O’hara, 53, escaped from the sixth floor of the high-rise block at around 1.30am on June 14 to find that Rosey, her cat, had disappeared.

Describing the ordeal, she said she had planned to put the cat in a carrier and cover it with a wet towel, but in the panic that followed she fled taking only her keys and a jacket.

In the aftermath of the blaze, which is believed to have claimed the lives of 80 people, although an accurate figure may not materialise until next year, Ms O’hara said her deep trauma from the fire was made worse by thinking her cat had been trapped in the building.

Following the disaster, Ms O’hara said she had returned repeatedly to the area surrounding Grenfell to ask if anyone had seen her black and white cat, while also putting up posters.

When she failed to receive any responses, she feared the worst. But in a seemingly miraculous turn of events, she has now said that she has now been reunited with Rosey.

Ms O’hara yesterday revealed in an interview with the Guardian that Rosey had been returned to her two months later, after a resident of Oxford Gardens, a few hundred feet from the

‘I got a phone call ... I was asking, is she OK, is she burnt? But she just had a scratch on her nose’

blaze, found her cat emaciated and frightened. After taking her to a vet, the animal was scanned for a microchip, which identified her as belonging to Ms O’hara.

“I got a phone call saying, ‘We think we’ve found your cat’,” Ms O’hara said. “I was asking, is she OK, is she burnt? But she just had a scratch on her nose.

“She recognised me straight away. Now I don’t let her out of my sight.”