The Island was plunged into darkness early on Thursday July 14, after what Bermuda Electric Light Company (Belco) chief executive Garry Madeiros called a "catastrophic failure" in its power transmission system.

At 3.04 a.m. on July 14 a fault in one of Belco's switch gear rooms resulted in a massive explosion and towering flames that emanated from Belco's Serpentine Road power plant for eight hours.

"We did not plan for this kind of catastrophe," Belco's chief operations officer Vince Ingham said at a Press conference on the day of the fire. "This is the worst-case scenario."

Seventy-five Bermuda Fire Service personnel braved flames reaching 800 degree Fahrenheit to extinguish the blaze.

Some 2,000 gallons of flammable transformer oil from the switch gear room poured out into the plant parking lot while crowds of people came to watch the carnage unfolding before them.

While the fire raged, there was speculation that the Island could be without power for weeks and even months, as Belco did not have the part necessary to switch power back on.

Luckily, this was not the case and power was restored to 90 percent of the Island by 11 p.m. that day.

By 6.30 a.m. Government had held a Emergency Measures Organisation meeting at the "war-room" at Police Headquarters at Prospect.

As the Island awoke, giant lines formed at gas stations and hardware stores, while Casey's Bar and The Beach on Front Street dealt with crowds from 10 a.m. celebrating an impromptu holiday many dubbed "Belco Fire Day" and beaches were full of swimmers.

However, power was not restored to the Island's business hub in the City of Hamilton until Monday, two-and-a-half-days after the blaze.

Five days after the fire, Michael Collier, the chairman of the Belco board of directors, announced the firm would be launching an investigation into what went wrong.

Attorney General Larry Mussenden advised Government to build its own emergency electricity facility.

By July 21, six businesses near Marginal Wharf, St. David's, remained without power and at the same time, Hott 107.5 prankster Thaao Dill sparked controversy after asking a Hamilton business to turn off office equipment in preparation of a rolling blackout.

Businessman Stephen Thomson estimated that between $40-$50 million of income was lost by all businesses in Hamilton due to the blackout.

Two months later, an independent inquiry by EA Technologies revealed fire suppression equipment was switched off inside the switch room where the blaze started.

The report said that while it might have been difficult to prevent the electrical fault that began the blaze from occurring, the damage could have been reduced if the fire protection systems had worked properly.

Mr. Madeiros revealed the fire suppressers were disabled because they were indiscriminately going off and releasing life-threatening gas.

In October, Mr. Madeiros said Belco lost $3 million to $5 million in sales, it cost $1.5 million in restoration and a $500,000 insurance deductible.

He also wanted to see manually controlled fire suppression equipment placed outside of plant buildings.

It took a month to dismantle and remove asbestos from the destroyed switch room, he said, and a temporary switch gear room was due to be completed by November 30.

But as 2005 drew to a close, the aftermath of the Belco fire continued to be felt as Belco's power transmission system continued to operate in a weakened state.

A planning application to build a switch gear room to permanently replace the two that were destroyed by fire had not been approved at the time of writing.

However, Belco spokeswoman Linda Smith-Wilson said Belco was looking for completion of the permanent replacement room by next June, when the Belco system would be back to, and potentially beyond, its post-blackout state.