Governor Sir Richard Gozney today praised Bermudians for their common sense duing Hurricane Igor saying “You showed the world how things should be done”.

Sir Richard’s statement was issued this afternoon and said: “As Governor I should like to add my own warm gratitude to all members of the Police, Regiment, the Parks Department, Works and Engineering, Belco and all these others who helpd to guide the preparations for facing Hurricane Igor, and for beginning the clear-up so promptly on Monday.

Additional thanks go to HMS Manchester, the Royal Havy destroyer which steamed up from the Caribbean so that its helicopter could take senior Police and Regiment officers and others for an overall aerial check of damage on Monday afternoon. HMS Manchester steamed to the Caribbean immediately afterwards to stand ready for any further hurricanes in the Caribbean.

I would also like to pay sincere tribute to the common sense of the vast majority of Bermudians. You prepared well and you kept your heads down indoors on Sunday night (with or without a bottle of something special). You showed the world how things should be done.”

Belco said this morning that 4,200 customers were now without power in the wake of Hurricane Igor — and warned that there were unlikely to be big jumps in the number of restorations today.

At 11am the Central areas had 1,500 customers without power, the East area 1,400 and West, 1,300 with crews working in Main Road, Somerset, Spring Benny, Heydon Trust, Middle Road, Southampton, St David’s, St George’s Club, Dundonald Street at the City of Hamilton Depot, Spanish Point, North Shore, Pembroke, and St Mark’s Road.

A Belco spokesperson said: “There are substantial blocks of customers that crews are working to restore today. However, we are not likely to see the big jumps in numbers today, as each restoration may affect only a small number of customers. As mentioned earlier, each job can be time-consuming and can involve a lot of work.

“Crews are focusing on branchlines, as these represent the largest numbers of customers. However, while in an area for a branchline, they are also tackling the small pockets and individual customers, before leaving an area. Each area will be restored before crews move on to a new location.

“We are aware that a number of customers have been without power since the very early hours of Hurricane Igor. Unfortunately, if power was lost early in the storm, that likely means that the affected portion of our system will require considerable work to repair. We are looking at these outages, but cannot confirm restoration times.

“In today's morning meeting, the Incident Command Team decided that public announcement of the restoration-process completion date will be made tomorrow morning. We will provide an update when that date is confirmed.”

Marine and Ports this afternoon put out an update on the ferry service.

It said that today: the Pink Route (Paget/Warwick) is providing normal service as of 1pm; the Green Route (Rockaway), is providing service at the following times: 4.10pm, 5.30pm and 6.30pm only; the Blue Route (Cavello Bay and Watford Bridge), is providing service at the following times: 4.10pm, 5.30pm and 6.30pm only, and will resume full service to Dockyard tomorrow (Wednesday, September 22).

the Orange Route (St. George's) will resume full service tomorrow.

This morning the Ministry of Works and Engineering said residential waste collection has been altered today and tomorrow following Hurricane Igor.

Residential waste in the West End will be collected today (Tuesday, September 21) and in the East End, residential waste will be collected tomorrow (Wednesday, September 22).

Thursday and Friday's residential waste and recycling collection will return to the regular collection schedule.

The traffic lights at the junction of Collector's Hill and South Road, Smith's, are out of order as a result of Hurricane Igor and motorists are being asked to take care as they travel through this junction.

A temporary ‘stop’ sign has been placed at the foot of Collector Hill at this junction which will control traffic in the same manner as the old system. This arrangement will remain in place until the traffic lights are operable once again.