Bishop Carroll Rolle knows he cannot sleep in the storm-ravaged structure that used to be his house on Acklins Island, yet he is determined to stay there as long as there is daylight. After all, even though there's not much left, it is still home.
It's where The Nassau Guardian found Rolle during a visit to Acklins on Saturday.
At 79, Rolle has aged into a dignified man with snow-white hair and white eye lashes.
Walking with a cane, but with firm, measured steps, he gave a tour of what was left, pointing to an old shed that was reduced to rubble, and the walls of the modest house he lived in, barely still standing after Irene's ferocious winds pummeled Acklins last week.  The hurricane tore off most of the roof of Rolle's home, and the roofs of many other buildings on the island.
"Most of my damage extends from the roof.  We lost shingles and different things," said Rolle, who retired to Acklins in 1992.  "I don't know what I'm going to do with this and I don't want to move back to Nassau because Nassau is no place for me.  In today's day they push old people out the way.  That's my reason for    retiring back here."
He called the experience of the storm heart-breaking.  "Thank God there was not much water," Rolle said.  "The most we got was wind."
Not too far away in Snug Corner, Henry Rolle, one of Bishop Rolle's 11 sons, sat across from his establishment, Club Rolex, which was also battered when Hurricane Irene roared through on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
"I heard about Hurricane Irene coming but I never thought she was that serious," Henry Rolle said.  "I made some arrangements to batten up and secure it and all of that but when [I watched] the hurricane as it passed it just destroyed the building, totally destroyed the building."
Rolle said his building is not insured because there were tough times with the recession.  The storm ripped through the roof and smashed up the nightspot.  On Saturday, the floor was still in place, but it was covered with slippery muck and debris.  The dance floor still remained, but there was no music anywhere.  It too was covered in the mangled mess left by Irene.
Across the island, the hurricane also left miles of power lines on the ground.  Several men worked under the blistering August sun on Saturday afternoon, pulling wires and cables -- some with their bare hands.  The men had one ladder pressed against a pole that was still standing.  They had no bucket truck and not much else as they worked on restoring power to an island where most of the several hundred residents remained without electricity and water.
The island's chief councilor Roston Cox, who was a part of the small Bahamas Electricity Corporation work team, could not say how long it would be before power is restored to the entire island.  "We're just doing the best we can," Cox said, "trying to take it one day at a time."  He said power had been restored to a portion of Spring Point, Delectable Bay and Pompey Bay.
Referring to the storm, he added, "In the amount of time that I've been living, I've never seen anything like it.  There are some people who say the strength of the hurricane was similar to [Hurricane Donna in 1960] but I am not familiar with Donna."  He said the experience with Irene was "real scary."
Stephen Wilson, assistant administrator for Acklins, said 17 houses on the island were destroyed, and 80 percent of all the houses were impacted by the storm.
"We're asking for food, water and clothing and then we need building materials so that they can commence the reconstruction," Wilson said.  He added though that Acklins Islanders are positive, resilient people.  "The people are strong," Wilson said.  "All of them would tell you that they thank God that no life was lost in this ordeal."
Rev. Newton Williamson echoed that sentiment.
"When I saw [the devastation to my property] I said thank God I'm alive," Williamson said, "because if I am alive there is hope to replace [what was lost]."  His popular fishing lodge at Grey's Point received substantial damage in the storm.  Windows were busted out, the roof was raked away and contents from the building were sent sailing in every conceivable direction.  A fishing boat was overturned in bushes not far from the main structure.  The fishing lodge would have to be re-built, but Williamson said he was not sure whether the structure is insured.  "I have never seen devastation like that and I have been through a lot of hurricanes," said Williamson, referring generally to Irene's impact on Acklins.
In other settlements, similar stories have emerged.
Eliza Taylor, 83, returned to her Mason's Bay home on Saturday after riding out the storm in Nassau.  The old woman put out shoes to dry, wiping away water and dirt.  She wore a pained expression with beads of sweat popping across her forehead and draining down her weathered cheeks as she tried to salvage whatever she could.
"Oh my God, only destruction I call it," Taylor said.  "I couldn't believe it."  Irene pounded the small home, tossing things inside around like rag dolls.  A little bathroom mirror was still on the wall, but the small bathroom was a mess from the storm's force -- as was every other room.  "Everything is just gone," said Taylor, who pointed out that her small restaurant was also torn apart.
A couple miles away, Bishop Rolle was still sitting there, meditating.  When night comes, he will go back to his son's house.  Until then, he will use the daylight hours to pray for the people of Acklins.
"I thank God for life because you can easily get material things back, but life, you cannot get it back," Rolle said.
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