An Alabama apartment complex was paid a visit by an unusual guest as children were coming home from school one Monday afternoon: an alligator that crawled out of a storm drain.

Kenisha Miller and her boyfriend, Anthony Patterson, told WKRG-TV that they were driving home when they stopped to do a double-take in a downtown Mobile, Alabama neighborhood.

“We saw a gator coming out of the drainage hole, and I was like, ‘Is that really a gator?’” Miller said.

The couple tried to get police and wildlife officials to the scene quickly as the reptile inched toward the complex.

A school bus was dropping off kids less than 50 feet down the street. Miller and Patterson said other people were initially oblivious to the gator.

But a crowd soon formed, with some neighborhood residents trying to record the surprising scene.

“They were just as shocked as we were,” Patterson said. “Never (seen) nothing like this, in the hood, anyway.”

Wildlife officials safely captured the wandering alligator and relocated it.