Pets Also Terror Attack Victims

Sept. 28 -- Talk about having nine lives, Tweety Pie is one very lucky feline survivor of the World Trade Center terrorist attack.

When terrorists crashed two hijacked planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, they did more than leave 6,000 people either dead or missing. Hundreds of pets either expecting their masters to come home or who were abandoned during the evacuation of various buildings nearby were left to fend for themselves.

Tweety Pie was among the lucky 200 animals the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has rescued since the terrorist attacks, and Kathleen Ross, Tweety Pie's owner, considers herself and her cat very blessed.

"All I wanted was my cat," Ross said. "I kept telling them, 'I want my cat. … I've got to see my cat.'"

Ross and Tweety Pie were at home only blocks away from ground zero when the attacks occurred. Ross recalled hearing a loud noise and thinking that a movie was being made nearby because she said her neighborhood is a popular spot for filmmaking. But soon she realized that the sound of a horrific attack was all too real.

"I was thinking, 'Oh, they're making another movie.' Then I saw all the stuff, the papers and debris coming down from the sky," Ross said. "A crowd was gathered downstairs across the street from the Federal Building and I went down and someone said a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. But I thought that that was no small plane."

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One Tough, Stubborn Cat

Ross returned to her building and tried to get Tweety Pie into her cat carrier. But Tweety Pie didn't want to leave.

"I was so afraid … I got her box and I wanted to put her in and she wouldn't let me," Ross said. "When I grabbed her she bit me. So, I chased her around and that took a few minutes and then they started evacuating the building. And that's how we left it."

And that was the last image Ross would have of Tweety Pie for the next five days. After leaving Tweety Pie, Ross and the other tenants in her building were advised not to return to their apartments until further notice. Ross wondered whether she would ever see Tweety Pie again and worried that she would starve to death.