Madeira Beach hero meets with neighbor he saved during storm

MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. — Last year’s storms took a toll on so many Bay Area communities. Some lost everything they owned.

Some even lost their lives. 

But there were also a number of heroes who came out of the storms with memorable stories.

Right after Hurricane Helene, we spoke with a Madeira Beach man who saved three of his elderly neighbors from storm surge the night of the storm.

We checked in with him a year later along with one of the people he saved.

Last September, Michael Greenstein detailed the remarkable story of how he waded through floodwaters in the middle of the night, risking his own life to save not one, not two, but three of his elderly neighbors and a cat during Hurricane Helene.

Connie Noren, 87, was one of those neighbors.

“It’s very scary. I didn’t know whether we were going to make it,” she said.

She sat down with Greenstein a year later, and their recollection of that night still very vivid.

Noren remembered how Greenstein saved their neighbor, who’s in her 90s and hearing impaired.

“She would’ve died that night I think, because the water was up to the mattress ,” Noren said.

“Yeah, she was floating on the bed. The bed was floating,” said Greenstein.

Noren said she’s known Greenstein since he was about three years old. She said the night of the storm reminded her of the times her family took Greenstein out on their boat with her grandkids when he was just a little boy.

“He was so mad at me that day because we made him wear a life jacket. And he was just stomping around, because, ‘How come I have to wear a life jacket, and the other guys don’t have to wear a life jacket?’ And I said, Michael, you’re just a little guy you need to,’” Noren said.

During last year’s storms, she laughed and said that those roles reversed. 

“Now for him to come save me from the water, that was the joke,” Noren said.

“Yeah, you needed a life jacket that day,” Greenstein said, laughing.

Noren’s waterfront condo filled with water during the storm and it’s still under construction.

Greenstein also rescued Noren’s older son that night. He’s back at home now. The other elderly neighbor moved closer to family in Utah according to Noren. 

As for Noren, she says recovery has been difficult.

“I’ve just been going from condo to condo to survive,” she said. 

She’s thankful renovations are almost done and even more thankful for her neighbor and friend, Greenstein, who’s had his heroism celebrated twice since we last saw him. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office honored him with two different awards.

Greenstein said so much has changed since last September.

“At the time, I definitely had the adrenaline flowing a few weeks after that,” he said.

The adrenaline rush from those rescues may be over, but his desire to do good in the world after all of this — that’s one of the things, he says, this experience has taught him to focus on everyday.