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Cat Rescued After Superstorm Sandy Finds Home With Fellow Refugee

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- They're two of a kind.

A stray kitten that spent a year recuperating with an animal rescue group after getting plucked from the streets of a flood-ravaged section of Brooklyn has finally been adopted -- by a fellow Superstorm Sandy refugee.

The little gray and white cat, named Joy, was the last of nearly 300 stray and displaced pets that wound up in an American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter after the storm.

This week, she was getting used to her new home with Robert Curran, whose home and family business on Rockaway Peninsula were also partially destroyed.

Curran said he reached out to the ASPCA after reading about the group's attempt to find Joy a permanent home.

"She looked like she just needed some love and affection and a happy place to be,'' said Curran. "I said, 'You know what? I'm rebuilding my life. This cat needs help too."

Joy was probably about 6-months-old when she was found, skinny and skittish, on the streets of Gravesend last November. After the emergency shelter closed, she lived at the ASPCA's offices in Manhattan. The organization didn't initially put her up for adoption because she was initially terrified around people. By the storm's anniversary last month, she was playful and eating treats out of people's hands.

"She is super playful, we've been able to encourage her to interact with people. One of her new tricks is sitting on people's laps," Jesse Oldham of the ASPCA told WCBS 880's Sophia Hall last month. "She's really, really loving and is bonded to people when she gets to know them."

Meanwhile, Curran relocated from the Queens seashore to Brooklyn after Sandy's tidal surge pushed several feet of water into the P.J. Curran Bar & Grill, which his family has owned for decades. His apartment, above the bar, lost its heating and electrical systems. The place still hasn't reopened, and Curran said he doesn't know if it ever will.

"We're dealing with insurance issues. We're dealing with the future of the block,'' he said. "Remember, you're talking about putting an entertainment business back in an area where everyone lost their life savings -- Who has money to go out on a Friday night?''

Still, Curran's a survivor. And, so far, Joy has proven to be one, too.

"She's adorable,'' he said, adding that the transition has gone smoother than expected. "I expected not to see her for two weeks. But she's been fine.''

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(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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