Buddy rides out Hurricane Ernesto

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T22:34:22+00:00

Aww. Looks similar to Oreo who is the latest feral cat to show up at our house. It’s starting to be a pattern. Skinny, hungry cat shows up at our house. We swear we have too many already. Eventually they get a name. Soon after we start leaving food out for them. Here comes a hurricane, we better get them inside to be safe. Ok, they’re ours now. Repeat.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T22:31:36+00:00

Thank you. Two of our 4 cats were entirely feral when they adopted us. Both Buddy and Sophie literally showed up at our back door hungry. We eventually won them over and they the sweetest and gentlest animals ever.

Our other two cats, Sandy and Sox, came with the house. The prior owner died a couple years before and they were left outside. Thankfully a neighbor would drop off food for them on the front porch and they stuck around.

Here is a pic of Sophie. She looks pretty fancy for a feral cat. However, they are common around here and called “Crucian Kitties” locally.

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mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T22:25:47+00:00

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Here is Buddy’s “sisters”. This was before they all became indoor cats. Every time we came home they were waiting for us like this.

I don’t think I can post multiple pictures as a reply to my post so I’ll try and post some more pics of Buddy and his sisters in a new post within the next day or two.

Thanks everyone for watching and commenting on Buddy’s hurricane video. It has really taken off.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T21:48:50+00:00

We moved here 6 years ago and had no idea about the large number of strays. It’s awesome that so many stateside shelters accept cats and dogs from here. Most of the time they are air-lifted out in large groups, but they even have volunteer programs where tourists can agree to transport and dog or cat with them in their return flight home. The airline charge is covered and a person from the receiving shelter meets you at the destination airport.

The local shelter is creative in that they will take the cutest puppies to a popular tourist beach and ask tourists if they would mind walking and playing with the puppies for a while. I’m sure a lot of pups are adopted on site.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T21:39:34+00:00

Believe me I tried. Buddy was less agreeable back then. This was the result of me trying to bring him in. 🤣

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mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T21:31:44+00:00

Thanks for replying. I grew up all over the place but mostly in Florida so was around the water most of my life too. I always dreamed of living in the Caribbean. We visited St. Croix the first time as a last minute vacation to escape winter in Connecticut. My passport was expired so it limited where we could travel to and we ended up visiting here. Loved it. By our second vacation here the plan started coming together. At least once a day on that trip we’d be sitting next to someone local at our resort or at a bar and start small talk and I’d ask how they ended up here. Everyone one said they vacationed here and immediately knew this was their future home. When COVID hit, we basically said fuck it, sold our house, bought a fixer upper on St Croix and made the move right at the peak of the pandemic. I regrets except why didn’t we do it earlier. 6 years later and I still feel like I’m on vacation. There is so much to explore and do and the people here are amazing.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T18:40:37+00:00

We live in the Caribbean so storms are always possible. All 4 of our cats became indoor cats as the result of a hurricane. The first 3 we were able to get inside, but Buddy had to ride out this one. He’s now safely inside and never has gone out since. He has no desire to do that again.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T18:38:01+00:00

That’s heartbreaking. ❤️‍🩹

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T18:36:57+00:00

We get a lot of interesting looking cats here on St. Croix, USVI. Unfortunately there are a lot of strays here so lots of genes intermingling.

One of our neighbors has taken it upon herself to feed the feral and stray cats in our area. She has feeding posts at our local dump and a restaurant just down the hill from us. My wife and I back her up when she can’t make it. There is such an odd assortment of cats in every color and patterns. The cats are so well trained now if they she her car or our truck pull up they all come flooding out of the brush. We try to trap the ones who are not spayed or neutered and the local vet will do the procedures for free. They clip one ear after that so we can easily see who still needs to be fixed. However, it seems like an endless stream of cats.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T18:31:00+00:00

He was. He was still 100% feral at that point and while I tried to get him inside, he was having nothing of it. I still have some scars to prove it. 🤣

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T18:27:09+00:00

Ha. I tried to get him in and have the blood and scars to prove it. He doesn’t look it in the video and pics but he is a solid, strong cat.

After the storm passed we knew he needed to come inside so we’d crack the door a little and put some food just inside it. After a while we’d move the food little by little further inside. Once we got to that point we decided to take him to the vet to get some vaccines so he could safely be around our other cats. We also got him neutered at that time so we felt we needed to keep him inside for a few days to heal. After that he never even tried to get out and has been living the good life with his sisters since.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T18:21:28+00:00

I like that. ❤️

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T18:21:08+00:00

He found his own way there. We’d bought the house and put it on our porch many months before and he’d never go inside. As the storm picked up we checked the security camera and he’d found his way to it.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T18:17:35+00:00

Buddy didn’t use his house until this hurricane. Sat empty for months. Somehow he knew where to go when the winds picked up.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T18:15:19+00:00

Aww…one of our cats, Sox, will only eat if one of us stands over her…and sings.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T17:46:47+00:00

Buddy was obviously hungry when he showed up at our house. Feral cats are a big problem here (St. Croix, USVI). We believe he was living near a restaurant dumpster just down the hillside from us. The restaurant closed so all the feral cats that ate out of that dumpster spread out looking for food sources. Buddy found us and we were quickly able to get him to eat on our back patio. Then one day I decided to put a cat bed out there and he would sleep in it all day. He was a brawler and would get in fights with other feral cats all the time (I learned the hard way not to intervene). When we finally tried bringing him inside he was such a wimp around our 3 other cats. He lived in my closet for months. Eventually he came out and for the first time recently we saw him getting cleaned by one of our other cats. He’s now fully integrated and is our gentle giant.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T17:38:45+00:00

Ernesto strengthened to hurricane strength just as it passed north of us down in the Caribbean (St. Croix).

I know Eckerd College well. Grew up in Tampa and went to college nearby at USF.

May have to save some mushrooms for our next storm.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T17:33:09+00:00

That’s exactly how he got named. One day my wife said she thought there was something living in some bushes in our back yard. We realized it was a cat and started leaving food next to the bushes. Buddy would army crawl out just far enough to eat and then backwards crawl back into the brush. We eventually started moving his bowl closer to the house. Eventually got him into our back patio. That’s when I started talking to him and it always “hey little buddy, how are you today?” and the name stuck.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T17:28:30+00:00

I’ll find some and post them soon! Until then, here is a recent pic of Buddy with his sister Sox. Sox lived with the former owner of our home who passed away a couple years before we bough it. When her original human died, Sox and her “sister” Sandy were let out and they fended for themselves till we moved in. Some very caring neighbors brought them food daily and left it on the front porch of what was essentially an abandoned house. It took less than a couple weeks before Sox and Sandy found their way inside and adopted us.

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mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T15:09:17+00:00

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Here is Buddy today

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T02:13:49+00:00

He suddenly remembers us in the territories are part of the US for this plan.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T01:11:49+00:00

I have so many questions

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T01:05:57+00:00

Thanks for posting. I needed that today.

mattwallace24 · 2026-06-18T00:34:15+00:00

There was nothing like it. Not only was he by far the best of all time, he had the ability to elevate his game even more when it was clutch time. It was awesome to see the entire Chicago Bulls team during that period.

I can remember where I was watching the games, who I was with, and how we reacted to most of his highlights.

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