Six-toed creatures are descendants of the writer’s pet

Entire islands have been reduced to rubble, streets have turned to rivers, cranes have buckled and more than 30 people have died. But the six-toed Hemingway cats are fine.

The 54 cats, many of them descendants of a white polydactyl cat owned by Ernest Hemingway, live at the writer’s house in Key West, Florida, which was hit hard by Hurricane Irma.

As the storm approached last week, officials ordered a full evacuation of the Florida Keys. But Jacque Sands, the general manager of the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, refused to leave. She had an obligation, she said, to see the property and the cats through the hurricane.

Animal lovers fretted. One of Hemingway’s granddaughters, actor Mariel Hemingway, publicly urged Ms. Sands to move to safety. “I think you’re wonderful and an admirable person for trying to stay there and to try to save the cats and the house,” she said in a video posted by TMZ, but “this is frightening. This hurricane is a big deal.”

“Get in the car with the cats and take off,” the actor pleaded.

Staff stay behind

Ms. Sands did not. The cats, she said, would come inside when the barometric pressure dropped, and they and their human attendants would be safe within the 18-inch-thick limestone walls of the house. It appears she was right: The house’s curator, Dave Gonzales, has confirmed that the cats, many of which have six or seven toes, were unharmed.

Mr. Gonzales told NBC that 10 employees had stayed on site with the cats and had made it through the storm just fine.

The Spanish Colonial-style building, near the westernmost point of Key West, was built in 1851 and became home to the author and his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, 80 years later. NYT