MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. — On Madeira Beach, the aftermath and cleanup is just as devastating there as it is up and down the coast. For many, it became a matter of life and death.

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Michael Greenstein was born and raised on Madeira Beach and never expected the kind of damage Hurricane Helene caused.

He said his family and many of his neighbors who live in evacuation Zone A didn’t evacuate. As conditions worsened, he said his neighbors started to cry out for help.

“All of a sudden, I hear someone screaming for help! ‘Help me, help me! We need help, we’re trapped’,” Greenstein said.

As soon as he heard those pleas, he sprang into action. He left his second-floor condo that he shares with his parents and began wading in rising water at the height of the storm. On Monday, he described the scene.

“I popped this screen off, so I had to step up here to talk to him and kinda reach my hand in to hold his hand and tell him everything’s gonna be OK,” he said. “And when the water level rushed in, that’s when this dropped down and the bottom window broke out, so I was able to grab here and barely shimmy my way in there.”

Inside was his elderly neighbor, who he has known since he was a toddler, along with her son. He says it was a struggle to get inside to help.

“As he pulls the window up, water just rushes through like I’ve never seen and it broke the window that he’s holding on to,” he said. “So, he’s holding on to this window with the water rushing against him, looking at me and just screaming. So, I’m like, ‘Jump on the bed! Jump on the bed!’”

With his heart racing, Greenstein said he eventually made it inside.

“I walked in and I said, ‘Hey are you OK Connie?’ She’s just sitting there with water up to her chest in a chair and she’s like, ‘I’m OK but it’s flooded.’ I was like, ‘I know, but we’re gonna get you out,’” he said.

He carried his neighbor to safety, along with her son. Both made it inside of the second-floor condo he shares with his parents. It was inside of his home that he made another discovery.

“Connie told me, ‘My neighbor Jean is 93 in the house next to me, and I think she’s in there and I don’t think her caretaker is here and I think she’s all by herself,’” he said.

It took more than an hour, but he was able to rescue his 93-year-old neighbor, who is deaf and couldn’t hear his calls from outside.

“At this point, the water level was so high, I had to fully submerge to go in under the window and into her house,” he said. “So I put my stuff in my container, grabbed it, went under, popped up in the house and I yelled, ‘I’m in your house, are you in here? Jean, it’s Mike, your neighbor. I’m here.’ And all I hear is, ‘I’m in here.’”

He came up with a plan fast.

“This is actually how I got her out,” Greenstein explained. “It was with one of these chairs here. I used this chair or one of these chairs because it has a little bit of floatation with this PVC and I sat her on that.”

At that point, it was midnight, and conditions here were at their worst. Greenstein said he didn’t think twice.

“To say I wasn’t scared would be a lie for sure. But when someone needs your help, there’s no room for fear in your heart. I just did what I had to do,” he said.

Greenstein doesn’t believe he’s a hero. He said he’s just a neighbor who helped his neighbors in need. He said he was also able to save his neighbor’s cat. The people he helped save are now being helped by family and out of harm’s way.