LACOMBE, La. — Members of the St. Tammany Fire Department say in all their years, they have never gotten a call for help like the one they got Tuesday.

It was a call that led to more than three hours underground, with their parish partners who manage the drainage system.

If Meatball, the 17-year-old Shih Tzu mix, could talk, man, would he have a story to tell about the 30 hours spent deep below his home in Lacombe in the maze of drainage infrastructure.

“I was looking in all the bushes. I was looking across the street in the tall grass. I mean, I was looking in the ditches,” recalls Meatball’s owner, Chuck Gorney.

Meatball's AirTag pinged him on a road next to the house, but what happened next involves several men from St. Tammany Fire District 3 and the Department of Public Works. The

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