Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home looks saturated after Hurricane Ian

All 59 famous six-toed cats that roam the grounds of Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home are safe and sound after Hurricane Ian ravaged Florida earlier this week.

New film material shared by the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum on Thursday, the legendary writer’s cats back in the property showed superficial wind damage from the storm.

The cats, which had been kept safely in sheltered cages during the storm, were seen in the video moving cautiously around rubble and over the saturated terrain as they inspect the damage.

The famous house, which dates back to the 1930s, reopened on Thursday and all 59 cats were taken care of, a spokesperson said.

Key West was hit hard early Tuesday night as Hurricane Ian swept through and devastated other parts of Florida, including Fort Myers and Sanibel Island.

The storm weakened somewhat, but then regained hurricane strength and is on track to hit the Carolinas Friday afternoon.

The house is well equipped to withstand the many storms it has endured over the decades. Located 16 feet above sea level, it has 18-inch-thick limestone walls and three generators.

Hemingway Home staff spent days preparing for the storm’s arrival, closing the shutters and placing the cats in protective cages.

Some employees even stayed on site during the storm to care for the six-toed critters.

“We’ve seen some debris blowing across the site and wind damage. A lot has been blown through the garden,” spokesperson Alexa Morgan told DailyMail.com.

“All cats are safe — we don’t put them in cages, they walk around and of course they know how to get to safety during storms,” ​​Alexa said.

The cat colony has been a famous feature of Ernest Hemingway’s home since the day a sailor gave him a six-toed cat, which he named Snow White.

Some of the cats living there today are descendants of that original ancestor and all share the unusual number of toes for a cat.

While regular cats have five toes on the front paws and four on the back — so 18 in all — Hemingway’s cats are polydactyl cats, which have six or sometimes seven toes on the front paws.

Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter said before the storm hit that she prayed that the beloved mansion would be spared by the hurricane.

Mariel Hemingway, 60, said her grandfather was passionate about his homes and the community around them.

The house was originally given to Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline, as a wedding gift from her uncle.

“If one of his homes were destroyed, the pain and grief would be felt,” she told DailyMail.com.

“It would be alarming if any of his houses were damaged.”

The celebrated author owned three homes – in Key West; Ketchum, Idaho and the Cuban capital Havana – and enjoyed turning them into opulent residences where he would work, rest and entertain.

Mariel, whose father Jack was the only child of Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson, said he would have been relieved that his Cuban home had been spared by Hurricane Ian.

“He loved Cuba and the devastation it has seen would have touched him greatly. The Cuba house was his favorite,’ Mariel said.

She said that when the house in the Keys was headed toward Hurricane Irma in September 2017, it took hours for the news to seep through.

“When the Florida cat was hit by a hurricane before, the only news that came out was that his six-toed cat had survived,” she said.