Bermuda emerges unscathed from Hurricane Igor

Bermuda was cleaning up yesterday after emerging mostly unscathed from Hurricane Igor, which hit the island chain with ferocious winds and rains causing huge power outages, but no loss of life.

The unusually large category one storm had an eye that was bigger than Bermuda, and it was feared that it would flatten the British overseas territory of some 65,000 inhabitants when it struck on Sunday.

But in the end Igor’s impact was limited with little structural damage, despite a massive loss of power that affected every corner of the island chain.

Power company Belco said 28,700 of its 35,000 customers were without electricity. It was not immediately known how long Bermudans would have to go without power, but past outages from major storms have lasted days.

The sheer size of the storm – which had a wind field of nearly 965 kilometres – meant Bermuda was in for a continued battering even as Igor retreated, with tropical storm strength winds anticipated for much of the day.

Premier Ewart Brown sounded the alarm late last week that Igor could prove as devastating as Hurricane Fabian, which claimed four lives and caused millions of dollars of damage in 2003. Those fears proved unfounded however.

The biggest hit, perhaps, was to the tourism industry that drives the economy here.

Officials said they suffered a big loss in bookings for the weekend, after an exodus of tourists on Thursday and Friday, although many visitors chose to ride out the storm in their hotels.