Burglars who targeted eight properties while Hurricane Florence lashed the Island were condemned yesterday by Minister of Home Affairs and Public Safety Derrick Burgess.

According to Police, the offences were committed between Sunday evening and Monday evening as Bermuda suffered 100 mph-plus winds. Seven commercial properties were affected and one private home.

Mr. Burgess said: ?It?s deplorable. I?m sure the courts will deal them an appropriate punishment.?

And Shadow Minister of Home Affairs Maxwell Burgess said: ?We need to do all we can to apprehend the culprits. I regard them as ruthless and callous cowards who - at a time of Bermudians needing to pull together - decided to pull away from the rest of us and engage in this behaviour.?

Besides the burglaries, Police said that over the weekend including Monday there were 26 reported burglaries in total, 20 reported damage only road traffic collisions - one of which took place during the hurricane - and seven traffic collisions resulting in injury.

There were 84 calls for assistance during Hurricane Florence, consisting of reports of alarm activations, burglaries, transformer outages, fallen trees and debris in the road..