Happy to be back: Scrub, now seven, went missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina but has now been found

A cat lost in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has been reunited with its owners five years later.

Scrub, a seven-year-old Russian blue tabby, disappeared when his owners were forced to leave windows open to combat stifling heat without air-conditioning.

Electricity supplies failed when the catastrophic 2005 hurricane struck the US coast in the Gulf of Mexico, breaching levees and killing at least 1,836 people.

Welcome home: Matthew Noble looks after Scrub after he went missing for five years

Jennifer Noble, of Biloxi, Mississippi, said she believed Scrub had gone forever when he disappeared, then aged about two years.

She said: 'The scenery was changing every day. I honestly think he got disoriented; that he just couldn’t find this way back.

'If he could talk I’m sure he has quite a story to tell us.'

Scrub was found in good health with a few scars but with a slightly feral side.

'Today, he still has his moments where he gets a little jumpy,' Noble said. 'He is not as docile as he used to be. He’s got a little bit of wild in him.

'It was such an odd thing. All the other cats I’ve known have been afraid to get under a cover. Scrub always slept underneath a blanket on somebody’s bed.'

Tara High, Humane Society of South Mississippi director, said: 'This is the power of microchipping.

'There is no other way that cat would have found its family. This is a very dramatic story with a wonderful ending.'

Hundreds of people died in the state of Mississippi and more than 1,500 in the neighbouring state of Louisiana when Category Three storm Katrina struck on August 29 2005.

Soldiering on: An army patrol in the aftermath of the storm