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Mark Schweickart
Mike -- loved your piece. Perhaps you should interview my sister Ellen, a fellow Orlandian, who like you suffered the experience you described, but even moreso, when you said, "when I had a momentary chill of a presence, somebody’s in here, knowing logically that no one was there."
She works as a caretaker for a lady in her eigthies, Hilda, who suffers from dementia. Hilda has an around the clock caretaker in addition to Ellen, so Ellen does not spend the night with them in Hida's house. Because Hilda's house has lots of windows, the decision was made to have the three of them hunker down in Ellen's small condo when Irma hit. That night was intense as everyone knows, but they got through it all right. No power or landline phone, but we in the family got a text in the morning that they were okay.
What sort of okay is okay, we wondered? After all, there was Hilda's condition that had to make things supremely difficult for Ellen. As it turned out, things were definitely looking up for Ellen. Although she was without power, Hilda's house still had power, so they made it back to Hilda's, and made her much more comfortable in her familiar setting. However Maddy and I did not know this, and could only imagine that things might have gotten much worse.
I almost don't know which is scarier, being in the storm without power and communication, or being a concerned family member safe in another part of the country watching the non-stop images of devastation CNNing across the television screen. (Of course I know which is worse, but you get what I mean.) I had a meeting that night and while out, my wife saw at one point that one could call a number in Orlando, and request that a loved one be checked on. Given Hilda's situation, and assuming they were all holed up in Ellen's small condo, she put in a call asking that, if possible, maybe they could be checked on. She did not expect any sort of quick response, but thought it might be good to make sure they were not huddling in the dark, knee deep in water.
As it turned out, Ellen had spent the day at Hilda's and then returned to her place to crash. She was exhausted by the stress of the past day and a half, and went immeditely to bed, and fell into a deep sleep. It was pitch black of course in her neighborhood that night, when like Mike, she suddenly awoke to the "chill of a presence, somebody’s in here, knowing logically that no one was there." Then she saw beams of flashlights traversing her walls, and a voice shouting, "Ellen! Are you in here?" She let out a wimpering gasp, and heard, "Ellen, is that you? Your daughter from California called, asking us to check on you." Scrambling her covers up around her neck, and thanking God she had taken the time to put on pajamas," she terrifyingly responded, "I don't have a daughter." Now there were three figures in the dark, each identified only by the flashlights they weilded approaching her bed. "Maybe it was your sister?" came the voice trying to calm her. "I don't have a sister in California," she cried. "So you are okay?" "Yes, yes."
And so they left. Apparently she had slept right through their knocking on the door, and when one of them tried a window, he was able to open it and crawl through to let the other two responders in.
Quite an emotional capper to add to the trauma of the storm.
Of course she does have a "sister-in-law in California."
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