why was saving molly so difficult?
Locating molly the cat –
Considering no one had actually seen where Molly had gone it opened up afloodgate of possibilities. If she’s now covered by a pile of garbage in the alleyhow would we reach her? It was so narrow we had no chance of maneuveringthrough it and even equipment had to be carved down to fit into the alley. If wewere able to locate her in the pile, how would we reach her without bringingthe entire pile of garbage onto her? And what if she entered the tunnels going intothe building? She could have gone into the side of the building but she also couldhave gone into the floor boards, a never ending alleyway through the first floorof the building. What we wound up having to do was physically investigateeach possibility and rule them out one by one.
Myers of Keswick is in a national landmark building.
Because there are laws that protect National Landmark buildings from beingtouched structurally, we were limited in what we could do to find Molly.When the fire department came over they had opened up some holes on theside of the building and in the ceiling (from the basement) of the first floor.We used these holes to put a snake camera we had rented (a 100 ft. snakelike camera) to try and find Molly. This required us finding alleywaysthrough the floorboards and then letting the camera sit and waiting tohopefully see her.
Part of the reason but definitely not the only one this became a big storywas the question, what limits there are when you’re trying to save an animaland it’s stuck in a national landmark building? People from the National Landmarkcommission did come down and look over what we were doing, gave us an okand even left a can of cat food to try and tempt Molly.
Myers of Keswick serves food –
Myers of Keswick is a haven for transplanted Englishmen and women.They serve cottage pies, sausage and have all types of others foods soldback in Great Britain. This was not the ideal location to have to open upa wall with a drill bit and have plaster flying. The owner of Myer’s wasunderstandably apprehensive on letting us open up his stores walls andin the limited times we were able to it was late at night and for limitedtimes and places. While this was our greatest way to locate her it wasalso the most difficult place for us to get to and most days we were notable to work on the wall.
The conditions in general –
For two weeks straight we spent the better parts of our days in a very oldbasement breathing in who knows what. It was hot, dusty and the situationalone was very stressful. Most of us worked 15-17 hour days, did not eatnor drink enough and by the end of this experience many of us actuallystarted to have health problems. On top of this it was just like the moviesin that it became a circus outside the site with the media and onlookers alike.You’d step outside to try and get some clean air and immediately havemicrophones and cameras put in your face. At the same time the mediahelped this story keep going, helped us keep searching and played a bigrole in us finding Molly.
Click here to read more about molly the cat
