[truthfinder9]

Many think that the flood accounts point to the same catastrophe that ended the last Ice Age, see The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: How a Stone-Age Comet Changed the Course of World Culture. by Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith. The Hebrew of the Genesis flood account is written in such a way (that usually isn't translated well into English) that suggests it is only describing Noah's immediate area. Hence, possible survivors elsewhere.

[wendy1946]

It was a world-wide and solar-system wide event. Chinese and Greek/Roman accounts speak of handfuls of people and animals surviving here and there on high places and/or anything which could float for the better part of a year.

The story itself is true; the standard religious interpretation of it being a divine punishment against the entire world you could take or leave, my own choice is to leave it.