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Posts tagged ‘Hurricane’

Sep 8

U.S. Tennis Open

I was in Queens, New York yesterday watching the U.S. Tennis Open. It was a flying visit, one full day, two nights and four Covid tests. We had great seats for Tuesday’s afternoon session and in the first quarter final game watched Danill Medvedev beat outsider Botic Van De Zandschulp, ranked 454 in the world.

The Russian was cruising, but in the 3rd set the Dutchman made a game of it delaying our escape to find some shade. It was a hot day, the sun, motionless above us, was baking hot, thus the famed honey deuces were a necessity for hydration purposes. Medvedev, the no.2 seed eventually won 6-3, 6-0, 4-6, 7-5.

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Sep 21

Hurricane Teddy

It’s beyond me how this 21 square mile island can get hit twice in a week by two different hurricanes occupying the 41,000,000 square mile Atlantic Ocean!

Like buses or supposed Charlton owners. Last Monday Paulette, today Teddy.

Teddy is this hurricane season’s 19th named storm, we have now by the way for just the second time since records began exhausted the alphabet and now on the Greek letters, with Beta about to crawl into Texas.

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Sep 15

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Hurricane pressure

Thanks for the kind words. We made it through yesterday, but Paulette was slow moving making it a very long day.

This is a satellite image of Hurricane Paulette moving over Bermuda yesterday with the eye right over the island. If you can zoom in you will see the island in the middle.

That was around 8am, and the peace and blue sky that follows is pretty surreal. The absence of that eerie whistling sound, the crashing of branches and trees and creaking windows disappeared for almost two hours before the backside of the storm moved onto us, and she was hefty old bird.

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Sep 13

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Hurricane Paulette

it has been a very active Atlantic hurricane season thus far, with already 18 named storms, 5 in September already so Bermuda was never going to get away scot-free and sure enough Hurricane Paulette is barrelling towards us and is expected to roll right over the top of us around 6am tomorrow. Unfortunately it is meandering so slowly that the island will suffer hurricane force winds for up to 9 hours. What fun!

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Sep 24

Hurricane Humberto

Whilst I was in basking in the 100-degree Arizona heat. I was working I’d like to add, well apart from the Sedona road trip, my family and the island of Bermuda got badly rattled by Hurricane Humberto last Wednesday and Thursday. To show how completely unpredictable hurricanes can be as I left the island Tuesday morning it was coming in at a Cat One (95 mph max sustained winds), but by the time the little f***** got here it was blowing at 125 mph, close to a Cat Four, with gusts as much as 144 mph.

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Sep 17

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Mr Popular

Mr popular at home this morning as I crashed and banged out of the house at dusk lugging a suitcase for a work trip. I leave behind a family and an island that is bracing it for its first major hurricane in three years.

Hurricane Humberto is moving east-northeast at 7mph and then is due to take a sharp right turn as it finds Bermuda’s warm waters and will roll very close to us as a Cat 2 storm on late Wednesday night.

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Sep 11

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Hurricane Leslie wrap

A few people have asked me if we survived, and the answer is quite comfortably. Leslie passed by here gathering speed on Sunday night and is now belting Newfoundland. It left as it started on Saturday night with an incredible sunset, and the island breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Scattered power outages affected around 800 people but not us, roads were littered with debris, ferries, buses were cancelled and the airport closed but business was pretty much back to normal on Monday. Ostensibly what happened was a very wet and windy and boring tucked up indoors of a weekend.

The photo is of Leslie captured by NASA’s Terra satellite as it moved past Bermuda on Sunday.

Sep 9

Hurricane Leslie update – Sunday 2pm

Outside the one window facing the Atlantic Ocean that is not boarded up I am finding it hard to decipher the sea and the sky, it’s just a canvas of murky grey. The rain is coming at the window like someone is stood outside with a power washer but the winds aren’t that bad.

According to the eminent Bernews 800 homes are currently without power, we are currently ok, although the telly is a little shaky and the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore is giving us regular updates stood on the beach at Elbow in his waterproofs.
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Sep 8

Hurricane Leslie update – Saturday 6pm

Hurricane Leslie has finally got itself into gear and is now motoring at 8mph across the Atlantic Ocean but fortunately she is still driving in a direction away to the east of the island.

Leslie has dropped it’s strength and is now classified as a Tropical Storm (sustained winds less than 74mph) and is located approximately 250 miles south-southeast of us. The sea temperatures down there apparently are a little chilly but there is plenty of warm water ahead and it is then that Leslie will regain hurricane status. Hurricane’s are powered by warm surface sea temperatures.
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Sep 5

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The calm before the storm

The waters are very flat around the isles of Bermuda today. Glass like in fact. Yet 400 miles away from us lies Hurricane Leslie and she is looking at us licking her lips. If she was a bus she would have ‘Bermuda’ written on the front of it, because that is her next stop.
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Aug 29

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Hurricane Irene

With one eye on the telly watching CNN’s saturated 24-hour hurricane coverage and one eye on my daughter in her playroom yesterday I suddenly saw out of the corner of my eye her inflatable turtle, which earlier she’d been sat in half full of water, fly by the window followed by a couple of garden chairs.

I rushed outside and there he was Tropical Storm Jose careering past Bermuda 50 miles away packing winds of 40mph. My little excursion out to the garden got me soaked and when I returned to the telly there was Anderson Cooper on CNN stood in the middle of a deserted New York’s Greenwich Village desperately looking for sign of rain, let alone a hurricane.

Hurricane Hyperbole is nothing new, especially since the invention of 24-hour news channels, and the American’s have rarely been known to overreact, but when one anchor proclaimed that the storm to be as “big as Europe” it was enough for me to turn over.
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Jul 20

Bret

Last September I blogged through the night (my September archive is dominated by it) when Hurricane Igor battered the island throughout the night. It was a scary experience coming a day after I had knee surgery and was hobbling around on crutches.

The hurricane season is with us again and Bermuda is set to have it’s first 2011 brush with nature on Thursday as Tropical Storm (a named storm is not classified as a hurricane unless it has sustained winds of at least 74 mph) Bret passes by the island.
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Sep 23

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Hurricane Igor photos

Photos complimentary of the superb Bernews.com.

From top, left to right: Beach erosion afterwards at Elbow Beach; Power cables down on Monday morning; The South Shore as Igor approached; The ‘Bermudian’ ferry breaking free at St Georges; The square at historical St Georges flooded the night of the hurricane; The Causeway that leads from St Georges and the island’s airport to the rest of the country almost hidden by driving rain; The tide comes over high cliffs at Smiths Parish; The Pink Beach Club 6 hours before the hurricane passed.

Sep 20

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Hurricane Igor update – Monday evening

That was some night but Hurricane Igor eventually packed his huff and puff and headed back out to the Atlantic this morning leaving the island to lick it’s wounds.

There was a fair bit of damage such as at Hamilton’s main ferry terminal but most of it appears superficial although some areas were badly flooded including the historical town of St George’s. A lot of the south shore beaches will take a while to recover after suffering erosion due to the huge waves. We went along to Elbow Beach today, where the Weather Channel was reporting from, and the steps leading down to the beach had disappeared and the restaurants were closed.

The strongest measured wind gust was 94 mph and one can only imagine what a Category 4 or 5 storm would be like (Igor was officially a Cat 1). Personally I never want to find out and having ticked the box will take the family and bugger off island at the slightest sign of another one.
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Sep 20

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Hurricane Igor update – Monday 1.45am

We have just spent the last 90 minutes hanging onto a set of french doors in our living room as Hurricane Igor threatened to invade us. The wooden boarding that once protected the door was flying around the patio and it was scarying the shit out of me as it turned in every direction. Fortunately it settled at the foot of the door but I made damn sure I kept my flashlight on it.

The winds have subsided a bit now and I’m bloody hoping Igor has moved down the island to give someone else some fun and games.

By the sound of it the island has been banged up pretty good, although I am glad to hear there has been no casualties.

We’re now laying in bed listening to the wind whistling. That noise will stay with me for a while.

Sep 19

Hurricane Igor update – Sunday 11.10pm

We are now holed up in our front bedroom as Hurricane Igor moved to the south of us and our back garden around 10pm when the eastern part of the eye-wall hit the island. This is the most destructive part of the hurricane which measures an incredible 633 miles by diameter!

The power went out about an hour ago due I think to a lightning strike in the area. The howling of the burglar and smoke alarms was very eerie indeed.

Reports from the excellent Bernews.com are evidencing a lot of damage on the island including to the main ferry terminal in Hamilton. We are doing okay but the two french doors in our living room are squealing and bowing like crazy. Walking, sorry hobbling around downstairs a moment ago was quite scary.

It has been suggested that the eastern parishes (we are in the west) will suffer the storm a lot longer than we will as Igor slowly makes it way along the south of the island and back out into the Atlantic.

Our 10-month old daughter who has been fantastic all day has suddenly become like a frightened puppy at the onset of a thunderstorm. I suspect she senses our anxieties.

Hurricane force winds are expected for a couple of more hours yet, but by the early afternoon tomorrow we should be clear of Igor.

Thank you to all of you that have sent your thoughts and well wishes to us on here and on Twitter, they are much appreciated.

Sep 19

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Hurricane Igor update – Sunday 5.45pm

We have had power back for a few hours now, so thank you BELCO for that. 16,000 homes remain without though, which is about half of the island. The power returning caused a bit of a shock as we were all napping at the time and then the various smoke alarms around the house screeched into action. I am sure scurrying up a ladder to loosen wires in the upstairs hallway was not what the physio had in mind yesterday when he told me I could start to put some weight on my foot today!

The winds are now around 100 mph and as I look outside of the kitchen window the rain is coming down sideways and as I type the front door has just blown open and one of the wooden boards on the french doors has come off. We need to move that.

Igor is now just 25 miles from passing the south-west of the island, which should be within the next 2 hours.

Sep 19

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Hurricane Igor update – Sunday 9.30am

We lost power at around 3 this morning, which was strange as there really wasn’t much going on outside. It then came back intermittently but has now been off for about two hours.

According to reports 3,650 households in Bermuda are currently without power and BELCO are trying to restore it. I don’t hold out much hope.

The rain and winds are now lashing down outside and we have taped all of the windows. The good news is that Igor has been downgraded to a Category 1 storm, so winds will be at a maximum sustained strength of 90mph. Igor was once not long ago a Cat 4.

Igor is around 250 miles away and is travelling in this direction north-north west at 12mph.

Sep 18

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Hurricane Igor

On returning home from hospital this afternoon we were met by our landlord boarding up the windows and patio doors of our house in readiness for Hurricane Igor (photo) that is expected to deliver Bermuda a direct hit in the early hours of Monday morning.

Bermuda is taking no chances as Igor is expected to be the strongest hurricane to hit the island since 2003 when four people were killed during Fabian on the causeway that separates the airport from the main island. Total property damage was an estimated $300 million and it was widely considered Bermuda’s worst storm since 1926.

Igor has followed a similar path to Fabian and will have sustained winds of approximately 110 mph, with higher gusts when the eye comes closest at 3am on Monday. Tropical storm winds are expected tomorrow and up to eight inches of rain is predicted. 

The whole thing with my right leg bandaged and in a brace is a bit of a nightmare to be honest. My Mum was supposed to be flying in on Monday to spend 10 days with us but all flights in and out of Bermuda have been cancelled until Tuesday and worse than the hurricane will be the unquestionable loss of power after the storm has passed.

All is quiet tonight though with Igor 363 miles away but the trees outside one of our unboarded windows are starting to sway gently. More is to come and I will try to blog on the storm as it approaches us.

Aug 7

Colin

No, not Powell but Tropical Storm Colin, which by late tonight may progress into a hurricane as it brushes 20 miles of the coast of Bermuda. Incoming flights have been cancelled this afternoon as the island hunkers down. Our new house faces the ocean and we should get a good view of the approaching storm.

Before that we are off to a 1st birthday party, so hopefully the weather holds for that but I could do with some cloud cover as I am still very burnt from being out on a boat yesterday afternoon. It was our work team’s summer party and despite it being my 3rd seeing the whole team in their swimwear still takes some getting used to.
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