Bertha Lashes Bermuda (AKA Lost our Virginity today!)

So after days of waiting for Bertha to arrive, she is finally here and we have lost our storm virginity. This is our first real experience of tropical storm/hurricane. I can only compare it to whiteout conditions in a blizzard for a couple hours except it is 75 degrees farenheit outside and instead of snow, its tons of rain and high wind whipping all around. Saw lots of tree branches and palm tree leaves all over the road on my way home from work and tons of bikes on their sides along Church street that had been knocked over by the winds but no real property damage. The worst is still supposed to be a bit later tonite and hopefully we don't lose our power. In the meantime, here is an extract from the Bermuda Sun website to update everyone on how things are going here. ( We are home and safe so not to worry!)

The days leading up to the storm truly were like the cliche of the calm before the storm. We had terrific weather all weekend and the only signs of the impending storm were the high seas and that the tree frogs stopped singing about 2 days ago. Our neighbours dog was acting a bit weird the last few days, constantly sniffing the air but other than that, nothing until early this morning when woke up to howling winds and torrential rain. Had hoped it was bad enough to get the day off work but called the emergency hotline and essentially was directed to go to work! (Did get to leave early though!) Here is an extract off the Bermuda Suns website of an article that was posted a few hours ago.

7/14/2008 4:09:00 PM
Causeway closes as storm lashes island
MONDAY JULY 14, 4.50pm:

The Causeway is closed and will remain shut to traffic until at least 7pm. The decision was announced at literally the last minute - 4.55pm - as commuters were already beginning to make their way home.

A brief statement from the Cabinet Office read: "In the interest of public safety, due to unexpected high winds associated with the Tropical Storm Bertha a decision has been made by Government to close the Causeway immediately for a period of about two hours.

"The public will be advised immediately once the Causeway opens which is expected to be around 7pm or thereafter - until the severe winds have abated.

"The Government apologises for any inconvenience causes."

The statement was received by the Bermuda Sun at 4.55pm, after repeated calls throughout the afternoon

The timing of the decision is likely to cause massive disruption to people living in the east end.

The storm had been tracked for almost a week and as early as 3.30pm today forecasters had upgraded its status to a hurricane watch.

Meanwhile thousands of homes were without power and all flights and ferries were cancelled as gusts of up to 65 knots hit the island.

The storm brought down power lines causing outages across the island.

At the height of the storm just after 3pm BELCO said up to 1,000 homes were without electricity an estimate which they later revised to more than 4,000.

And forecasters adjusted their analysis of the storm and issued a 'hurricane alert' saying that winds could vary between 45 and 65 knots.

Experts say it is a slow-moving weather system that could still become a hurricane. They anticipate the worst part of the storm could not be over till after 7pm tonight

BELCO's Linda Smith-Wilson said that more homes could be affected as the storm continued throughout the afternoon.

But she said work crews were out fixing the faults and at present the situation was 'manageable' and in most cases power was being restored within 90 minutes.

"Crews have been out since 12.43 am today. We can't really project how bad it is going to be until the winds die down but at the moment it looks manageable."

She said Mangrove Bay in Somerset, Happy Valley in Pembroke and Forest Hills in Warwick were the worst affected areas.

"There seem to be some areas that have gone off and back on again all day," she added.

"Some of it is lines coming down or branches hitting the lines and shorting them out."

Meanwhile all today's flights to and from Bermuda were cancelled.

The 6:20pm British Airways flight and 8:40pm American Airlines flight were cancelled late in the afternoon with the other 12 flights already cancelled in the morning.

All ferries had been cancelled but buses were still running.

Garbage collection was not completed today. The West route will be completed tomorrow with the East route postponed until Wednesday.