Belco had restored power to all but 1,600 hurricane-hit customers as of last night ? but the company warned further progress will be much slower.

Meanwhile, all the Island?s schools will open for the new school year this morning ? apart from Lyceum Preschool in Bailey?s Bay which has a fallen electrical cable.

The Ministry of Works and Engineering said the Longbird Bridge will remain closed to marine traffic until further notice after salt water damaged its electrical panels.

Work continues on the causeway which is still operating on a single lane over a small area of erosion. The Ministry is seeking to have the causeway reopened to two lane traffic by the weekend.

As of yesterday morning the Swing Bridge was back in service for marine traffic. The airport reopened at noon with a slightly reduced schedule.

Government Agricultural Officer Tommy Sinclair said the storm had wiped out crops all over Bermuda, costing farmers thousands of dollars in lost earnings.

He said: ?For the bigger farmers it won?t affect them so much but it?s much worse for the smaller farmers with one or two fields who are having to start from scratch all over again.?

Hurricane Florencehad left 25,000 homes and businesses powerless at its peak but as of 4 p.m. yesterday Belco had completed restoring all main line circuits.

Spokeswoman Linda Smith-Wilson said once all of the main line circuits are restored progress slows considerably as Belco mops up tiny pockets of outages scattered throughout the Island.

The priority is larger areas first while also helping areas where repairs can be made quickly, said Mrs. Smith-Wilson.

?The emphasis has been on getting the main line circuits back and restoring the larger branch lines and we will generally work down from that.

?We are asking customers who remain without power to please give us a call so we can ensure the outage management system has captured everyone who is still without power, particularly those whose general areas seem to have been restored.?

The company?s website has information on areas where crews will be working so residents still without power can see whether their area is on the schedule and then determine, if they have the option, whether to stay at home or join family and friends in locations where there?s power.

?We would ask residents who do have power to consider helping others,? said Mrs Smith Wilson.

?Although assessments of some of the small pockets of work is still coming in, we anticipate we are looking at the end of the week or beginning of the weekend before all power is restored.

?We have all crews working and other employees out in the field assessing and planning the work that remains. This is a difficult time.?

She said even though Bermuda had not seen the devastation it suffered during 2003?s Hurricane Fabian, the system was battered with hurricane force winds, extended rain and flying debris.

?There was considerable strain on the overhead system, so there could also be occasions where there are additional outages or issues in areas that have already been restored and this would affect our overall progress.

?However, we are committed to doing all we can to get everyone back on supply as soon as we can.?

Alan Smith, Assistant General Manager of Bermuda CableVision, said lightning damage had been fixed.

?A few of our access poles are either hanging or broken.

?Our first priority is of course the safety of our valued employees and we are waiting for Belco to complete their work before we approach the poles.

?Our teams are closely following Belco to ensure all repairs that need to be made occur as soon as possible.?

CableVision will not be doing new installations until Monday as it works on restoring service to existing customers.