The latter is more likely. Don’t give up, when my cat was missing, we looked for him multiple times every day for a week, and we got to know every outdoor cat in the neighborhood, and trapped the orange cat that lives across the street three times, but we never once saw any sign of Gary, until he just showed up.
When her hunger starts to outweigh her fear, she’ll come looking for you, I suspect.
I hope so. 
Going to stake out the construction site tonight, getting a spot of shut eye first. Hope I’ll find Tara tonight!
Tara is beautiful. Crossing fingers that you’ll find her (or she’ll find you!) soon.
That’s a good idea. In my experience they stay too freaked out for a day or two to make any noise. Go out when it’s quiet, call her name some, and listen hard. Check hiding places around the area, but cats generally stay very close. In this case though noisy machines might have scared her a little farther away? Sending good thoughts!
I kid you not, I consulted with a real-live pet detective about this same issue a few years ago, when my cat was lost for eight days by a very irresponsible cat sitter.
Here is what she recommended, and it got my cat back within four hours:
Indoor cats rarely stray far from the house when they escape. They tend to become terrified and stick very close, except that they hide. They will often even shy from their owners. Just because you haven’t seen her doesn’t mean she isn’t there. They go a little nuts, and may not even really recognize you.
Get some Hav-A-Hart traps. Our police department provided them for free. Put them very near your apartment building. Drape the top, sides, and back with towels, so they look like a warm cozy place to go. I also put something inside with a familiar smell (a small blanket from his cat bed).
Then I baited the traps with Jack Mackerel–a cheap and stinky canned fish you can buy in the same aisle as the tuna.
Check the traps every four hours. You are likely to catch other animals with them. If you are going to have any shot at getting your cat back, you don’t want to leave the traps with another animal in them all night long. You’ll have to let out other animals you catch–likely cats. Raccoons are too smart to get caught, most of the time. But they may trip the traps so they close and are useless.
I got up at 2 am the first night I baited the traps to check them–and there was my cat. I spent 24 hours sitting outside the house prior to that, and never saw him once. Just four hours with the trap set up that way, and I had my (very skinny, very grateful) cat back.
I hope you have similar luck.
Kitteh spotted! Whoooo! I was getting anxious, as I hadn’t seen any cats all night, but at 5 am guess who poked her little head out from the covered drain to have a sniff?
She saw me and ran, though. I’ve got the trap set and ready - thank God that drain never fills up - but I’ve got the baby monitor next to it in case she trips it during the day soni can get her out asap.
She doesn’t even look skinny or dirty!
** Happy Dance!! **
Great news!
Yay!
Hooray!
Great news! I sure hope you can get her soon!
Put the Hav-A-Heart trap near where you saw the cat. Good luck!
All the best!
I was reading this thread for the first time today in hopes that there would be good news before the end, and there was! Yay Tara!
I have lost cats before for up to a month, and although I can’t* not* worry when they’re missing, I do have very high hopes for their eventual return.
Your cat saw you and ran away? And you’re going to try to trap her?
I’ve never been a cat owner, so maybe I’m missing something here. If my dog spotted me after being lost for days she would jump me and lick me to death.
Is this normal behaviour for a cat?
What she said. Rotten little wild creatures.
Missed that. Weird.
Yeah, cats’ll make you work for every damn thing. 
Depends on the cat.
Cats that are used to the outdoors of course do not get freaked out by it, but those who have been raised exclusively as indoor cats may find the outdoors extremely disorienting and frightening. Everything may seem menacing and predatory - like it is out to actively catch (and kill) the poor beast. Cars, other cats, dogs, etc. may all be things the cat has never really experienced before - and mostly hostile.
The cat can, to an extent, read the owner’s body language, and the owner is naturally frantic and wants to grab the cat ASAP - to the cat, the owner seems changed as well - no longer a comforting, relaxing presence (as he or she was indoors), but also, basically, “out to get” the cat. Of course the owner is out to “get” the cat to get it back indoors, but if the cat is sufficiently freaked out, it may not make that mental leap.
With lost dogs (and cats used to the outdoors) of course the situation is vastly different: dogs are used to the comforting combination of outdoors + owner.
Tabby Cat, if Tara isn’t back home yet, I suggest going outside late evening/early night, when things get quiet. Bring food with you, and a chair. Sit there with her food and wait for her to come to you. You can call her name gently, she’s almost certainly nearby. An indoors-only cat is easily spooked outside.
I wanted to write that to you when you posted about having seen her and her having run. Been there, done that. We got AG back late at night, a panicky cat attracted to her favourite treat (a bit of smoked salmon). She had been outside for a week, and we had almost given up on seeing her again. The traps didn’t work with her, we caught another cat with the trap, and I suspect that the other cat’s presence nearby may have added to AG’s terror.
Good luck with the trap, though if it didn’t work yet, I’d
