Extreme weather destroys entire towns and takes lives indiscriminately. One positive is that raging storms can't eat you. So when it comes to evoking primal fear, lions still have the edge.

That didn't stop a small group of Hurricane Ike survivors on Texas' Bolivar Peninsula from seeking refuge in a church with a full-grown lion. The cat's owner had rescued the massive feline from a local zoo and was trying to drive to safety when he saw flood waters rising and people being stranded. Stopping at a nearby Baptist church, the pair were invited in.

As the storm bore down, the church flooded, bringing water up to residents' waists, but the lion reportedly stayed calm (i.e., no one was devoured). "They worked pretty well together, actually," said the lion's owner, Michael Ray Kujawa. "When you have to swim, the lion doesn't care about eating nobody."

Question Raised: Are we idiots for thinking this makes the story of Noah's ark at least slightly more believable?