The president of The Bermuda Cement Company is hoping that damage suffered by the Dockyard plant during Hurricane Fabian might speed up much-needed refurbishment of the facilities. Although the walls of the building that houses the mechanics to bag cement were destroyed, president Jim Butterfield said the company was still able to supply cement even though the actual plant was "in ruins".

But he warned that if the facilities, which the company had been trying to get refurbished for the last two years, were not fixed Bermuda could be left without cement.

"It's like electricity, no one cares where it comes from and it's nothing that anyone cares about, but the day you don't have it you know how vital it is when it is gone," Mr. Butterfield said.

The Bermuda Cement Company has been serving the Island for the last 40 years without any problem but Mr. Butterfield said they had been pleading for the last two years with the Government and West End Development Corporation (Wedco), the company's landlord, to refurbish the plant.

"We're desperately trying to extend and repair the plant and we've been frustrated because they haven't made a decision about the lease. We could get no response from decision-makers and everyone we go to about it, well it just seems that it isn't a priority. Forty years ago we rented this land and over the last two years we've been begging to have the plant fixed but there has been no decision made about rebuilding this facility.

"Our plight is of an ageing facility. Soon we're going to have to tell Bermudians that we have no cement."

Even though cement production and bagging was able to continue early this morning, Mr. Butterfield said that thousands of bags of cement were ruined after they got wet from the rain because the walls had collapsed. Yesterday the company ordered plywood boards to keep the building secured but Mr. Butterfield is hoping that this will be a wake-up call - an incident that could have been prevented if the facilities had been renovated.

"Some attention needs to be paid and someone pretty quickly needs to make a decision," Mr. Butterfield said.