Hurricane Igor - Finally moved on

Well I'm back............ further to my last post before we lost power...

We finally lost power at 11.30 p.m. on Sunday evening - we were so lucky as a lot of people lost power a lot earlier.  Fortunately I was in bed and "sound O" by the time it went off and woke about 2 a.m. feeling very very hot and realised as I couldn't see my hand in front of me that we had lost power.  Fortunately I had a torch beside my bed and was able to negotiate a path out of the bedroom downstairs to get some water.  The wind was howling outside and was pretty scary and when I went out to take a look (from my sheltered viewpoint) we had two fences down around our property - one which i predicted would go and another which was pretty sheltered but obviously not as strong as it looks and which overlooks an 8 - 10 foot drop - remind me never to lean on that one again!

In order to aid sleep so that I could be fit enough to face the next day I popped one of my "emergency only" sleeping pills - I could never have fallen asleep without it as it was so hot and sticky.

The next day was calm, although still very gusty and we took our refugee home to the other side of the island.  Thankfully from what we saw there was no/to minimal structural damage.  The worst of the damage was caused by trees down, a lot of debris laying around making a drive along South Shore very slow indeed.  We were unable to take Hilary directly to her home as her road was totally blocked off by fallen trees but were able to take her along another road which had a hedge (now miserably thin) that she was able to crawl through to get to her house.

Driving back we detoured into Hamilton town centre.  There again a lot of debris lying around but already clean up was happening.  The ferry terminal took a bit of a battering and the tarpauline to protect passengers from rain has been shredded.  I did take photos but as I am now at work I don't have time to do this but will download tonight - although I'm pretty sure that most of you that have been kind enough to follow my blog will have seen photos on other web sites and news groups.

Hubby went into work around 11'ish to get the IT systems back up and running and I stayed at home, cleared the garden of all the debris - pruned my sad looking trees right back as they had been wind lashed and looked very sorry for themselves.  Without electricity and with very little to keep me occupied I went up and joined the neighbours in clearing a path through our road.  Amazing when everyone comes together how quickly things can return to normal.  I then passed the day by dunking myself in a very cold bath to cool off and took a book and fell asleep reading it!  I also polished off the remaining ice-cream in the fridge and have survived on a diet of weetabix (to use up the milk) and hummus and chips! not very healthy and I now have to get my backside into gear and work some of it off now I have no excuses.

Justin and I took a drive later that day after he returned home to get some dinner as one of the local grill restuarants was open - needless to say it was very busy!  When we walked back into our house we were greeted to the gentle hum of the ceiling fans, fridge freezer and air con and a lot of flashing lights off of the microwave, oven and digital clocks! hurrah, we were one of the lucky ones and had only lost power for approx 18 hours.

We received another call from our resident refugee to say that she still had now power at her home so of course, she joined us for another night at Chez Cornelli with full aircon and hot water facilities.  If this continues we will of course have to start charging a nightly fee :O) 

We all had an early night again last night (Monday) and now Tuesday, we are nearly back to normal.  The latest estimate puts people without power at 4'400 which is nothing short of a miracle - BELCO have been absolutely brilliant in getting power back on so quickly.

Anyway, must crack on with work but will update with more of what's been happening in Bermuda post storm when I get home tonight when I can also download some more photos.

Cheers

Penny