Published: September 24, 2007 10:29 am      

Smoky the cat found more than 3 months after tornado in rural northern Wis.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — More than three months after disappearing during a tornado, Smoky the cat has been reunited with his owner.

Smoky was last seen June 7, before a tornado destroyed Wanda Ploeger’s mobile home in rural Riverview, scattering her belongings.

Ploeger was at work that evening and couldn’t find her kitty when she returned.

Ploeger, who has been staying with her ex-husband, said she knew Smoky was out there somewhere. She’d go out late at night to look for Smoky because that’s when he liked to go out, she said.

“I kept telling my sister I never got a feeling about him,” she said. “With other animals I’d always get a feeling. ... I always thought he’d come back.”

And he did.

While driving about 2 1/2 miles from where her trailer used to be on Sept. 15, Ploeger saw a white streak and asked the driver to stop the truck along the highway.

The cat had gone over the hill so she crouched on the hill and called until it came to her.

Smoky dropped about three pounds and is now seven pounds. He also is taking antibiotics for an abscess, which he might have suffered while fighting, Ploeger said.

Ploeger said she plans to buy another mobile home and put it in the same place.

“It wouldn’t be the same without him here,” she said.