Cats have demonstrated the ability to sense danger and have been known to predict volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
In 1944, Toto lived with in a town near Italy's volcano, Mount Vesuvius. One night, he woke up his owner by repeatedly scratching his check. The man was angry and could not make the cat stop. His wife knew this behavior was strange, then thought the cat did this because he sensed Vesuvius was going to erupt. She convinced her husband to get up, pack some things and get out of the area. The volcano erupted an hour later, burying their house and killing 30 people.
In 1976, in the Friuli district of northeastern Italy, people noticed cats were running about madly, scratching at doors to get out of their houses and disappearing once outside. The odd behavior began in the early evening. At nine PM, a major earthquake hit the area. The same thing happened in 1975 in Haicheng, China. Seismologists evacuated the city 24 hours before a major earthquake hit. It was the cats' behavior, not their scientific equipment that led to the evacuation.
Last summer, there was a report about a cat who saved a family from perishing in a fire in the Philadelphia, PA news. The cat woke his owner and acted strangely. The man got up, looked out of the window and saw the neighbor's home was on fire. He called 911 and woke the family. Had it not been for the cat, the family would have died in the fire that would have engulfed their home.
Admittedly, cats have shown natural sensitivity to weather changes, electrostatic activity in the atmosphere and vibrations, so this could be a natural, as opposed to psychic ability, of the cat's ability to predict disasters. This does not explain how the cat in Philadelphia saved neighbors from the fire.
