It was a tremendous effort that stretched into the early morning hours and included help from family, friends, police, firefighters, maintenance workers, professional plumbers ... even the mayor.

But a 5-week old calico kitten stuck in a sewer drain off Washington Avenue died Wednesday.

“I really want to thank everyone for trying so hard to save that little girl,” said Vicki Nosal, 62, who set the rescue effort into motion.

Technically, the kitten in question has no owner. A stray roaming the neighborhood mothered a litter just over a month ago: two calicos and three black kittens “Until then we were calling (the stray) Petey because we thought she was a male,” said Nosal, who owns her own pet cats and a dog named Rueger. “People are always dropping off cats because they think they are disposable.”

Nosal said she believes the kittens were born in her outside dog house, but the mothera tuxedo cat with white sock feetmoved the brood a number of times. At some point, the kittens were relocated near Nosal's nearby sisters house by a Rose of Sharon bush. “And that's where the trouble started,” Nosal said. The kitten fell into a sewer clean out drain that dropped a couple of feet then made a bend. Nosal, her two sisters Bonnie and Mariann Nosal attempted to fish out the kitten for hours before calling for help. First, they made a call to the mayor who sent a borough maintenance worker to help. Then a police officer arrived and then some firefighters and neighbors. “And they dug and dug trying to rescue the kitten. They tried their best,” Nosal said. “We could see the poor little thing but we could not get at it. It was so scared.” Nosal said 4 or 5 men -- some friends, some strangers dug at a time. But at 2:30 a.m. they quit for the night, with a plan of finding a drain camera in the morning. And the general consensus, Nosal said,was that if people left the kitten alone it would work its way back out.

The next morning, a plumbing company came out immediately. “But it was too late,” Nosal said there might have been methane gas or water down there.”

The plumbing company dug out the kitten's body to be buried.

Nosal, who is now responsible for about $5,000 in plumbing repairs, warned people everywhere to be aware of pitfalls that might lie secretly in their own yards.

She asks cat owners to spay and neuter animals and not abandon them on other people's property.

But mostly, she tanks everyone who tried to save the little calico, “even if we were hoping for a different outcome.”