The island’s power grid has recovered after the overnight brush with Hurricane Melissa last week left about 19,000 Belco customers in the dark on Friday morning.

Belco advised that electricity had been restored to roughly 17,200 addresses by 11pm that day — but the five utility poles brought down by the hurricane took “extensive work to replace and rebuild”, with a single pole taking anywhere from four to eight hours to repair.

The company advised that many outages were sparked by overgrown vegetation touching live lines, often requiring the company’s restoration teams to spend hours cutting back trees before starting on restoration.

Hurricane Melissa also came with very little rain, leaving windborne salt on the wires, leading to pole fires that often needed support from the Bermuda Fire and Rescue Service to put out.

Shelly Leman, Belco’s managing director, said hurricane-force winds caused outages as Melissa passed to the northwest.

She added: “Most customers were restored soon after our crews began work, when it had been deemed safe to do so.”

She applauded staff for “their tireless work and dedication in getting all our customers’ power restored as quickly and safely as possible” and thanked the public for their patience.