ERROR RG P4 19.9.2000 The Royal Gazette would like to clarify statements made in the September 18 report on Hurricane Florence regarding Bermuda Weather Service forecasters being `caught unaware' of the storm's speed.

The Bermuda Weather Service had issued Tropical Storm warnings at 6 a.m. on Friday and tracked the progress of Florence as it progressed throughout the day. By early evening Friday, forecasters had upgraded the storm to a category 1 hurricane and revised its closest point of approach to early afternoon on Saturday. But, as the Weather Services' Roger Williams points out, tropical weather systems are dynamic and don't always follow the rules.

In Florence's case, the storm continued to gain speed and forecasts were subsequently updated late Friday night, after The Royal Gazette went to press, indicating the storm would roll past the Island in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The Royal Gazette would like to apologise for the confusion.

Hurricane Florence brushed by the Island early Saturday morning catching weather forecasters and residents unaware and leaving several areas of the Island without electricity.

But there were no reports of major damage, and Harbour Radio, the Police and Fire Services had no storm-related emergencies to respond to.

A Police Spokesperson said: "There were two trees reported down on Tee Street and on Mullet Bay Road St. George's, and there were several reports of boats breaking free from their moorings with little if any damage.'' James Buxton, duty forecaster at the Bermuda Weather Service said the National Hurricane Centre in Miami Florida issued an advisory on Friday afternoon suggesting Florence would slow down and move over the Bermuda area around midday on Saturday.

storm increased in speed and passed 60 to 70 nautical miles to the west-north-west at about 3 a.m. Saturday morning. The Island was buffeted with tropical storm force winds for about three hours up to 6 a.m. with the strongest wind gust recorded at 50 knots. Hurricane force winds extended 50 miles from the centre of the system, leaving us on the edge of the strongest winds. The storm moved in a north-easterly direction at about 20 knots and increased in strength as it moved away from the Bermuda area. Hurricane Florence was a marginal category one hurricane and dumped half an inch of rain on the island. A reconnaissance plane flew into the system on Friday afternoon and recorded 65 knot winds, leading to a hurricane classification. As it moved out to sea, Florence was downgraded to a tropical storm and by this morning it was expected to have dissipated and been downgraded to a tropical depression.

Mr. Buxton said: "we take advice from the national Hurricane Centre in Miami and issued bulletins based on their advisory from Friday Afternoon.'' He said it ended up being a case of crying wolf but, "it is better to be safe than sorry''. BELCO spokesperson, Robin Sidders said once winds began to pick up around one a.m. on Saturday morning, calls started to come in reporting power outages. In all five mainline circuits were lost in Park Road in Pembroke, Parsons Lane in Devonshire, Prospect in Devonshire, Knapton Hill in Smiths and Friswells Hill in Pembroke. The reasons for the failures were different each time but were all attributable to strong winds. Several smaller branch lines were lost as well as small pockets of houses from all over the island. Four repair crews were able to work through the night as the conditions were not too hostile, but some areas such as White Sands could not be worked on until day break. All main branch lines were repaired by seven a.m. although two areas lost power a second time, the majority of branch lines were repaired by noon and by 5.30 p.m. everyone's power had been restored. The number of families without power could not be quantified but Mrs. Sidders said calls were received steadily through the night, and abated by about 2 p.m. on Saturday. No major damage was reported to BELCO infrastructure and at daybreak the night crews were stood down and ten day crews took over the repair work.

Mrs. Sidders said: "Overall we were quite lucky that we didn't have any serious damage.'' The next hurricane of the Atlantic season, Gordon, is not expected to pose a threat to Bermuda at this time. It moved over Florida yesterday afternoon and is forecast to move to the north-east through Georgia