As an Instructor at The UK Meteorological Office College, I often gave lectures on hurricanes, their dynamics, forecasting and their economic consequences. However, I lacked any ‘practical’ experience! Until, that is, Hurricane Igor struck Bermuda last September, a few days after my wife, Penny I had arrived on a holiday to visit our son Andrew and his wife, Liz who both work in Bermuda! This is my personal log of the days leading up to Igor, the ‘strike’ and the aftereffects.***Bermuda a mid AtlanticIslandBermuda’s small size (20 miles long) and precarious ‘tourist’ economy point to its attractive, if not idyllic, lifestyle being highly vulnerable when hurricanes strike.Arrival and preparationsfor IgorOur flight from Gatwick touched down at 18:18 local at L F Wade International Airport on Thursday September 16, 2010. For several days Penny and I had noted Igor on the Bermuda Weather Service (BWS) web pages. The BWS were forecasting an almost ‘direct hit’ of the hurricane on Bermuda during the night of September 19/20; Category 3 at least was the forecast (sustained winds 111-130 mph devastating damage).Warnings about preparations had been issued by the Government to a population with bitter experience of Hurricane Fabian in September 2003 in which four died. Some vital precautions were:First Aid kit, tools, vehicle fuel tanks full, important documents in watertight containers, shutters on windows, get in food supplies, torches, candles, charge ‘mobiles’, fill baths with clean water (the electrical power will fail, so no pumps for water), remove potential ‘projectiles’ from vicinity (eg patio chairs, barbecues), tape windows against shattering, switch off electricity at the mains to avoid equipment damage by a ‘surge’ when power is restored, make provision for pets.Andrew’s firm shut down on Friday lunchtime for employees to make hurricane preparations back to work on Tuesday. Liz, fortunately, was not ‘on call’ for duty (as a sister at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital). Staff working sometime that weekend had, of course, to stay in the hospital for the hurricane’s duration.The Government message, then, was ‘STAY SAFE’.***Igor approachesBy midday on Friday (the 17th) Igor was 100 miles to the south, moving NNW at 8 mph. Sea surges were a sight to behold: 10-12 foot waves beyond the reefs, 4-6 feet within. The Royal Gazette was saying that the Igor’s eye would pass 10 miles to the west of the Island. But Igor was then reassessed as a Category 2 (sustained winds now 96-110 mph).By Saturday Igor was designated a Category 1 winds about 80 mph relief all round! However, although estimates of closest approach of the ‘eye’ to the west of Bermuda were now about 30 miles, its slow speed and huge (500 mile) extent of sustained winds meant Igor would linger across Bermuda for several hours in the early morning of Monday (the 20th). We joined the crowds as, from a safe distance, we watched the waves pounding Elbow Beach.By Sunday morning winds had built to gale force. Sleep had been intermittent. The morning was spent following the recommended precautions. Supplies of candles were dotted around the flat. No church services today!Conversations on the ‘Web’ with anxious relatives were abruptly cut at 17:30 on Sunday afternoon when the power went out. We were now without hot water, air conditioning (80 degrees and 90 percent humidity!), TV and refrigeration. Really cut off from the world!Salt deposits built up on the window. Strangely those amazing, tiny Bermuda tree frogs were still managing to hang onto leaves and screech!As Sunday evening approached, we too began our night vigil our Hurricane Party, starting with ‘Trivial Pursuit’, with ‘spirits’ raised with ‘Dark ‘n’ Stormies’ (20 percent rum, 80 percent ginger beer!). How very appropriate!From midnight, Sunday, through the early hours of Monday the wind was at its height (gusts to 103 mph were recorded at the airport), sounding like a roaring train just outside the window. The early morning brought the forecast drop of windspeed as Igor’s eye left the west of Bermuda (closest approach 22 miles) and headed north east. By 09:00 Igor was 100 miles to our north (its sea swell effects were dramatically felt later on the Newfoundland coast).Sun broke through the breaking cloud, but with no TV we did not then know of lives lost or of damage.***The AftermathPublic Safety Minister, David Burch, acknowledged that Bermuda had had a ‘near miss’. Premier Ewart Brown said: “I do believe the resilience of the Bermudian people will ensure that Bermuda will be back in business by the end of the week.”And so it proved.Buses were running again by Monday morning. However, the regular ferry services from Hamilton to the NW and NE of the Island did not recommence until Wednesday, September 22, due to damage to a ferry which had broken loose from its moorings.No deaths were recorded directly due to Igor; the hospital had taken the precaution of ‘calling in’ patients potentially ‘at risk’ (eg chronically ill, severe asthmatics and those highly pregnant). A school building had been reserved for the ‘homeless’ and those who did not wish to be alone.Everywhere tree debris was cleared quickly by the local authority but most trees were a very sorry sight. Those leaves left were subject to severe ‘salt burn’.At our nearby Elbow Beach sand had been washed away! Massive, previously hidden, rocks stood exposed another nearby beach was reduced to rocks. Locals assured us that within a few months the sea’s action would restore the beaches. Meanwhile we were able to resume our swimming after a bulldozer stacked up a ramp to join up the beach with the dangling steps!And power was restored to the flat by the evening of Tuesday; hooray, for running water and hot showers and a working refrigerator. However, it was some days before power was restored to some isolated communities.By Wednesday temperatures were up in the 80s and Penny and I were off re-acquainting ourselves with the delights of Bermuda, the ferry trips, the parks and meeting up with Andrew and Liz for a swim. Then back to their flat for dinner and, of course, ‘Dark ‘n’ Stormies’!Just as if nothing had happened but it had!