Hurricane Ernesto lashes Bermuda with strong winds, storm surge

Bermuda minister warns third hurricane of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season ‘is not a storm to be taken lightly’.

Hurricane Ernesto has left tens of thousands of people without power across Bermuda as it hit the British island territory with powerful winds, a dangerous storm surge and potentially deadly flooding.

The Category 1 storm brought maximum sustained winds of 140km/h (87mph) to Bermuda – home to about 64,000 people –  as it made landfall early on Saturday.

Electric utility BELCO said the storm caused nearly island-wide outages, with about 26,100 of roughly 36,000 customers without power at 9am local time (13:00 GMT).

Ernesto was expected to slowly depart Bermuda over the course of the day, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in the United States.

It will then move north-northeast on a track that would take it near or east of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador on Monday night, the NHC said.

Ernesto previously battered the northeastern Caribbean, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power or water in Puerto Rico after swiping past the US territory as a tropical storm.

Dangerous surf and rip currents are also possible in Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas and Atlantic Canada over the next few days, according to the NHC.

In preparation for the storm’s arrival in Bermuda, officials suspended public transportation and closed the airport on Friday night.

“Hurricane Ernesto seriously threatens our community,” said National Security Minister Michael Weeks. “This is not a storm to be taken lightly.”

By Friday afternoon, Ernesto’s winds had knocked out power to 5,400 of Bermuda’s 36,000 customers, the power utility BELCO said. The company said it had called its repair crews back from the field because it was too dangerous to work.

In Puerto Rico, more than 180,000 people were still without power more than two days after the storm’s passage.

Another 170,000 were without water as the National Weather Service issued yet another severe heat advisory, warning of “dangerously hot and humid conditions”.

“It’s not easy,” Andres Cabrera, 60, who lives in the north coastal city of Carolina and had no water or power, told The Associated Press news agency.

Like many in Puerto Rico, he could not afford a generator or solar panels. Cabrera said he was relying “on the wind that comes in from the street” for relief.

In the neighbouring US Virgin Islands, crews were also working to restore power, with 80 percent of customers back online.

Ernesto is the fifth named storm and the third hurricane of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.

It forecast 17 to 25 named storms, with four to seven major hurricanes.