Editor's Note: This is the fifth annual appearance of What It’s Like, a proven favorite with readers inside and outside Rotary. - The Rotarian

Mike Stafford - Rotary Club of Freeport, Bahamas

We knew that a storm was coming and that it was a bad one, so we were preparing. I run a small shipyard, and we stood down because the winds got to be too much for us to deal with pulling boats and ships out. We’d been through storms before, so we had all our supplies, our batteries. The only thing we had to buy was gasoline for the generators. My wife put up all the shutters.

I knew that we had to evacuate our main house the minute I heard gurgling in the toilets. I looked out a small hurricane window that we don’t shutter and saw water was all the way up to our back deck, which is about 160 feet from the seawall of the canal we live on and 22 feet above sea level. I said to my wife, “Honey, we’ve got to bug out.” That took a little while because we had to stuff our two cats in duffel bags, and cats don’t like getting stuffed in duffel bags with 180-mile-an-hour winds howling outside.

We went to a cottage on our property that’s about 150 feet higher than the house. We were in bed listening to the wind howling. It was about 3 in the morning, and we were holding hands, not sleeping. I was freaking out because you could hear the tornadoes whizzing around. My wife said, “Honey, I know that after this is done, you’re going to go to the water plant because you always do that and you always want to help people. Don’t worry, I understand, because you’re a Rotarian.”

Will plant 3,000 native tree and shrub seedlings

News Graphic - Conley Publishing Group

MEQUON — The Mequon Nature Preserve recently received a $4,500 grant from American Transmission Co.’s Community Planting Program to plant approximately 3,000 native tree and shrub seedlings to reforest select areas of the Preserve that are reverting back to mesic hardwood forests.

“Planting trees and shrubs will add a layer of food and habitat that is currently missing in select areas,” said Kristin Gies, executive director of the Mequon Nature Preserve. “With this grant from ATC, we’re increasing diversity not only within the plant community, but also the wildlife community. These trees and shrubs will provide food and shelter for thousands of species that rely on woody vegetation.”