As Hurricane Ida’s storm surge subsides, beachgoers should be careful where they step as some new beach dwellers may have temporarily moved in.

We’ve all heard of the strange things that can happen when powerful hurricanes blast onshore pushing huge amounts of storm surge with them.

Hurricanes and their storm surges can be amazingly powerful. A section of the lower Mississippi (at least the upper levels of the water) flowed backwards for a while on Sunday as Hurricane Ida powered through Louisiana.

But storm surges can also wreak havoc on nature as well. A Waveland, Mississippi, resident spotted an unusual beach bum Monday morning after the storm surge receded — an 8-foot alligator swimming and sunbathing in the Mississippi Sound.

The gator likely had become confused or disoriented during the storm. Although unusual to see an alligator in the actual Mississippi Sound, they’re quite common in the rivers that eventually dump into the Mississippi Sound.

In 2020, a resident of Gulf Shores, Alabama, videoed a 10 to 12-foot alligator swimming past her window as Hurricane Sally stormed ashore.

Hurricane Ida came ashore Sunday morning as a Category 4 storm, the same date 16 years earlier that Hurricane Katrina destroyed parts of Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.