GALVESTON, Texas—The reports of destruction and recovery from Hurricane Ike will likely dominate headlines for months and years to come. But three of the most talked-about stories of the storm weren’t about devastation, but rather a lion in a church, a tiger running loose on Bolivar Peninsula and a guy in a bear suit dancing on the seawall as the hurricane came ashore.

Jacob Calle came to Galveston to shoot video clips that he hoped would air on a reality TV show. The would-be filmmaker freelances for production companies by coming up with unusual — some would say crazy — videos.

The 27-year-old Pearland native arrived on the island the morning of Sept. 12, as the initial surge of Hurricane Ike was pounding the seawall.

Photo by Jennifer Reynolds / The Daily News

Jacob Calle is the Hurricane Bear.

“We ruined our expensive camera equipment trying to get shots. We went underneath the Flagship (Hotel) to see what that was like,” Calle said. “Then the police came up to us and said if we got within 10 feet of the seawall again they would arrest us.”

Thus, the video shoot was a wrap. Then he got a wild idea.

In addition to his camera equipment, Calle had a bear costume in his car.

“I went on tour with this band Lisa’s Sons and I was the bear mascot. I was the dancing bear as they performed,” Calle said.

He donned the outfit and went for a stroll. His walkabout came as TV crews lined the seawall reporting on Ike’s progress.

11 News reporter Rucks Russell and his photographer Gus Pereyra were reporting live in front of the San Luis Hotel when Calle’s dancing bear appeared on screen.

As Russell described the destructive force of the hurricane, Pereyra followed the bear as he crossed Seawall Boulevard.

Noticing he was on camera, Calle threw open his arms and began to dance. Only when the 61st Street pier was collapsing did the camera switch from Calle’s bear to the images of the hurricane’s destructive force.

The rest is viral video history.

Calle’s stunt became an online sensation, and he was featured on TV broadcasts across the world including bits on CNN, Fox News, the BBC and even Al-Jazeera.

The Hurricane Bear was also featured on VH1’s “Best Week Ever.”

Calle has been able to market himself as The Hurricane Bear, selling T-shirts and mouse pads online.

But it wasn't the first time Calle has pulled off such a hair-brained publicity stunt. In fact, he makes a living that way.

“Honestly, I consider it performance art,” Calle said. “It’s all about getting attention. We do very well with our videos.”

While planned, most of his video shoots risk serious injury to the participants, such as the time his brother dove into a cactus garden.

“He was a bloody mess,” Calle said. Still, the video clip proved popular.

The bear suit stunt was rather tame compared to other exploits, but what was he thinking?

“I don’t think. I just do it,” Calle said.

What Calle did has been described as stupid and irresponsible by some.

Even his own father thinks his antics are just an immature way of making a buck.

“He’s right,” Calle said. “I don’t think of the consequences. I’m into publicity stunts. Whatever it takes to get attention. That’s what I do for fun.”

“It’s just what I do.”

6 people, 1 African lion in the Baptist Church

As Hurricane Ike approached the Texas coast, Michael Kujawa attempted to evacuate his Crystal Beach home, along with his cat Shackle, the day before landfall.

“I tried to evacuate with (the cat) in the travel cage only to discover the ferry had been shut down 24 hours prior to the storm, something that had never happened before,” Kujawa said.

“I tried to drive out the High Island end, only to watch the people in front of me have to be lifted out of floodwaters by helicopter.”

Kujawa also could have been one of those rescued from the Bolivar Peninsula by the Army National Guard’s helicopter crews. But that would have meant leaving 11-year-old Shackle behind.

“The concept of having to abandon Shackle in a small travel cage unprotected in any way on a roadside was unbearable to me,” Kujawa said. “I was one of the people who understood why people in New Orleans were sitting on the rooftops with dogs in their laps unable to fathom a world which would force them to leave the animal to die. I would have been sitting on a roof, too, for how ever long it took.”

Even though the Nation Guard rescuers were allowing people to bring their pets with them on the choppers to safety, Kujawa’s situation was a bit different.

Shackle is not your ordinary house cat.

“I am not a brilliant man, but even I can figure out that few among us are heroic enough to let a full grown African lioness aboard a helicopter,” he said. There was also Bengal tiger at his place, known in the community as the Crystal Beach Zoo.

Kujawa decided he and Shackle would ride out the storm as best they could.

“I actually thought of a local bar first, someone had rigged a generator and television so we could track the hurricane’s approach. I became more and more aware of how bad the situation was looking and the bar began to flood... It seemed a good idea to leave while it was still possible to move around,” Kujawa said.

“We were running out of choices. I knew that the (First Baptist Church of Crystal Beach) was pretty well built and situated on a small hill. The logical part in my mind thinks that the hill was the reason, but I am sure there’s the aspect that a church might also be held up by such things as prayer and a contrarian wind from angels’ wings.”

Thing was, Kujawa wasn’t the only one who thought the church would make a good refuge. Five other people, including Robert Reed and Larry and Crystal White, also went to the church to ride out the storm.

When Kujawa arrived, though, none seemed too worried that they would be riding out Hurricane Ike with a 500-pound lion in the sanctuary.

At first Kujawa kept Shackle outside in a cage fixed to the back of his truck. But as conditions worsened, he went outside to fetch the big cat.

Initially, she wouldn’t budge. But with Reed’s help they were able to coax her out of the cage and into the church.

“The Bible says that the lion shall lie down with the lamb. Shackle, once she was in the church, chose to lie on the altar just like a lamb,” Kujawa said.

Meanwhile, Kujawa’s tiger was back at the zoo. She was in an elevated area he calls cat mountain that was about 12 feet high.

“One of the problems was that the tiger simply decided she was not going to get into the transport cage,” said Kujawa. “I did get her into (the cat mountain) cage feeling at that point it was her best chance for survival.”

Survive she did, although rumors flew that the tiger had gotten loose and was running wild on the peninsula. Emergency officials even used the tiger rumor as an excuse as to why they weren’t allowing access to the area.

Truth was, the tiger never got loose and survived Ike by riding out the storm on Kujawa’s cat mountain. Kujawa did have to give up ownership of the tiger, though, as the cost of raising two big cats and rebuilding his life after the storm proved to be too much.

These days, the tiger is at the International Exotic Animal Sanctuary in North Texas and has since been renamed Zippy.

Race car driver Tony Stewart even donated money to have a new cage built for the tiger, whose new name comes in honor of Stewart’s crew chief, Greg Zipadelli.

Kujawa and Shackle are living in Lake Somerville — for now. Both plan to return.

“I would like to go home. I think my whole community would like to go home. We just don’t have homes to go to. My house (before the storm) needed some repair (and) a fresh coat of paint. Now it needs a bulldozer,” Kujawa said. “If we could get some services restored, some temporary housing, some businesses up and running, the people would work hard to rebuild.”