Actually they weren’t removed. They were technically protected through the judgment. They didn’t leave the earth. They went through it, protected. And they worked for over 100 years building that ark as well. Warning people about the coming judgment.
Exactly, I agree. It could be(and Scripture somewhat bears this out) that those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior will be protected from the horrors, but will still be present on the Earth, as in this part of The Revelation, Chapter 9. Verse 4 speaks of those with the Seal of God on their foreheads as still being present on the Earth.
“The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.”