Price hikes due to new import tariffs in the US will not hit hurricane supplies until next year, one retailer told The Royal Gazette.

Terry Ebbin, vice-president, retail operations, at Masters Home Centre on Dundonald Street in Hamilton said: “We bought during the winter. Those prices are locked in. The price hike will come in the next year.”

In the US, Donald Trump has placed tariffs as high as 38 per cent on goods imported from certain countries such as China.

Ms Ebbin said hurricane supply sales were good a week ago when the path of Hurricane Erin was uncertain.

“There were lines to the cash registers sometimes,” she said, “but they were not as crazy as some years.”

Customers were buying more out of a need to prepare for hurricane season than from panic over the storm.

Ants could be one reason for their calm.

One Bermudian told The Royal Gazette she was confident Hurricane Erin would not strike the island because ants were not storming the house the way they usually do when bad weather is coming.

The Bermuda Weather Service agreed, predicting today that Category 2 Hurricane Erin would bring only tropical storm force winds to the area as it brushed by.

Some retailers were reporting slower sales on generators used to power homes in a blackout.

“We had an uptake in our generator sales over the last week, but with the news of Hurricane Erin not hitting us, demand has died back down,” said Teara Tomas, spokeswoman for Joshua Bate Trading in Devonshire. “It ebbs and flows.”

Morris Moniz, retail operations manager at SAL Trading, said the rate of generator sales depended on how bad the weather forecast was.

“Sales are going well, but it is not as brisk as last August when we had a direct hit,” Mr Moniz said. “Of course, having it miss us is a blessing.”

Almost exactly a year ago, Hurricane Ernesto, a Category 1 hurricane, hit Bermuda, bringing 84mph sustained winds and almost seven inches of rain.

“Fifty-knot winds are probably not going to sell as many generators,” Mr Moniz said. “However, we are still seeing sales of plywood, but not to the extent you would if we had a more severe storm.”