| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bermuda cleans up after Hurricane FabianAirport set to reopen Monday
HAMILTON, Bermuda (CNN) -- Bermuda International Airport is expected to reopen Monday to commercial traffic for the first time since brutal Hurricane Fabian pounded the coral islands last week, police said. Two-thirds of the western Atlantic island chain remained without power Sunday night, and many people had no water. But most of the roads were passable, and the tedious task of assessing and repairing the damage was under way. On Sunday, divers searching for four people apparently swept away by rising waters found the body of one of them -- Steven Symonds, 38. He was one of two police officers who, along with a police department employee, tried to help a civilian trapped on the milelong causeway leading to the Bermuda airport. The causeway partially collapsed. Vehicles of the police and civilian were found Saturday, and Symonds' body was discovered near his car, police said. Divers are searching for the other three victims, who are presumed dead, officials said. Bermuda Premier Alex Scott said some people had been hospitalized with minor injures. The injured were Bermudans, authorities said. Fabian struck Bermuda with 120 mph (192 km/h) winds, making it the strongest storm in nearly 80 years to hit the British crown colony. The hurricane downed hundreds of trees and power lines. CNN Correspondent Gary Tuchman toured the islands in the storm's aftermath, noting extensive -- but not catastrophic -- damage. "We've seen roofs off but very few homes actually totaled," he said. "And that's partly because of the very strict building codes here." On Monday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, reported Fabian was weakening as it continued to move toward the north Atlantic. At 11 a.m. EDT, the storm was about 680 miles (1,088 kilometers) east of Cape Race, Newfoundland, moving toward the northeast near 39 mph (63 km/h). Fabian's strong winds decreased to near 75 mph (120 km/h). Forecasters said they expect Fabian to lose its tropical status Monday. Scott said a hurricane had not killed anyone in Bermuda since a Category 3 storm scored a direct hit in 1926. Bermuda is no stranger to tropical weather, but it rarely has suffered a direct hit from a storm of Fabian's magnitude. Fabian was a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale measuring hurricane strength. Hurricanes are ranked 1 to 5 on the scale. Hurricane Arlene, a Category 2 storm, hit the islands with 100 mph (160 km/h) winds in 1963, and Emily -- a Category 1 with 90 mph winds -- caused millions of dollars in damage with a direct hit in 1987. No hurricane had struck the island since then. A Category 2 storm directly hit the islands in 1948 with 100 mph (160 km/h) winds, and the 1926 storm, at 121 mph (194 km/h), was only slightly stronger than Fabian. Meanwhile, Isabel -- the fourth hurricane of the 2003 Atlantic season -- strengthened in the Atlantic Ocean, far east of the Caribbean Sea, said the National Hurricane Center. (Full story)
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
