In the face of devastating flooding that spread out across southwest Florida, one woman took it upon herself to help an 84-year-old stranger stranded thousands of miles away from her daughter living on the other side of the country.
Christine Bomlitz took to Facebook on 29 September to seek help as Hurricane Ian tore through her 84-year-old mother’s home state and trapped countless people inside their flooded homes, unable to escape with dangerous winds still threatening their safety and emergency services being pushed beyond the brink.
“Any of my FL friends know anyone in Englewood? I Need to check on my mom. She doesn’t have a cell. I called to have well check, but who knows when that will be,” Ms Bomlitz wrote.
“The group she signed up to evacuate seniors did not get her so she rode it out by herself,” she added in her first social media callout, noting that her mother, Shirley Affolter, had no way of contacting her as her cellphone had gone missing before the category 4 hurricane made landfall and after it touched down, her landline was knocked out.
By the next day, Ms Bomlitz’s pleas were beginning to turn desperate as it had been more than 24 hours since she’d last heard from her mother, who lives alone in Englewood and requires a walker to get around.
“I’ve posted all night on all emergency boards as well as all Englewood storm pages checking on people. If anyone knows anyone in Englewood please give them my cell,” she wrote from her home in Las Vegas, nearly 2,500 miles away from where her mother lives in a retirement community.
By that afternoon, Ms Bomlitz’s calls for help were heard by a local good Samaritan.
Despite suffering significant damage to her own home, 26-year-old Cheynne Prevatt took it upon herself to check-in on the 84-year-old Florida resident, wading through chest-high water to reach Ms Affolter’s front door.
To her great relief, Ms Affolter was alive and well when she made it through the threshold of her flooded front doorway.
“I didn’t know who she was, but she was really kind of surprised to see me,” Ms Prevatt told the Associated Press in an interview after the daring rescue.
Once the Good Samaritan had explained her unexpected presence on Ms Affolter’s doorstep, she was able to connect the 84-year-old with her daughter with a cellphone.
The conversation didn’t last long, the Associated Press reported, as Ms Affolter’s hearing aids had stopped working and being unable to leave her own home meant that she hadn’t been able to get them repaired since the storm had touched down.
Though her mom was found to still be in shock when Ms Prevatt knocked at her door, she was soon safely removed by a volunteer who had escorted her through the street’s floodwaters by paddleboard.
Ms Bomlitz relayed in a follow-up post how eternally thankful she was for the “angel strangers” who swam down the street to check-in on her mother.
“The amazing souls, complete strangers, who came together and helped me orchestrate this from Las Vegas is astounding. I am deeply and profoundly moved beyond words by people coming together to help each other in such a way to save lives,” wrote Ms Prevatt, commending Ms Prevatt for wading through the waist-high water – all despite losing her own home in the storm. “It’s been an incredible experience. Words cannot express my sincerest gratitude to everyone.”
Ms Prevatt’s roof was punctured by a falling palm tree, rendering her home impossible to live in in the days since the hurricane that knocked out power to more than 4 million crossed through the state.
“Our house didn’t really make it,” she told the Associated Press. “All of our stuff is packed up, and we are trying to go to my grandmother’s house.”
As of Wednesday, a week after the storm surged across the Atlantic Ocean and blew across Florida and South Carolina, nearly 310,000 homes and businesses remained in the dark on the same day that President Joe Biden travelled to the Sunshine State and pledged support to help in the recovery.
Tens of thousands of homes were examined again by search-and-rescue teams after initial searches brought the death toll from Ian – predicted to be the costliest storm in the state since 1992 – topped 100.
