“It was just sad to see this happen again,” Michele Vikartofsky tells PEOPLE
Courtesy of Larry and Michele
Larry Leventhal and Michele Vikartofsky
In 2022, when Hurricane Ian hit Florida’s Sanibel Island, Michele Vikartofsky decided to stay put in her second-floor condo. When she learned that only a handful of people remained at the complex — all in first-floor units — she texted everybody and said, “Hey guys, if you need to shelter in place up here, please come.”
Soon, neighbor Larry Leventhal, who she had never met before, was ringing her doorbell with a small parade of neighbors behind him, and the group rode out the storm as the water surged 13 feet high into the building.
Leventhal, whose wife died in 2021, and Vikartofsky, who was divorced, soon learned that Ian had taken away their cars and destroyed the contents of their storage units. These new friends bonded by Ian’s wrath spent two days walking around Sanibel as the viewed Ian’s vast destruction together. “We kind of got to know each other that way,” she tells PEOPLE.
Courtesy of Larry and Michele
Larry Leventhal and Michele Vikartofsky
Over the next 14 months, their friendship deepened. Vikartofsky, 69, and Leventhal, 73, walked their dogs together every day and talked forever, and soon she realized she was in love. “He is kind, generous, has a great sense of humor and does everything for everybody,” Vikartofsky says…