A Mississippi woman and her stepdaughter were looking for their missing cat when they took a peek inside a storm drain and saw a large, cold-blooded reptile looking back at them.

“We looked inside and there was an alligator,” Pascagoula resident Brooque Snow told WLOX TV. “At first were like wait a minute, so we took a second glance … then I took out my phone. took a picture and I told the neighbors.”

Snow said it was her first encounter with an alligator.

She called animal control officers who responded to her house and eventually called wildlife experts in to help. A 7-foot alligator is not for the faint of heart.

The crews worked to safely free the animal from the drain.