A final 167 Belco customers remained in the dark as of 3pm yesterday in the aftermath of Hurricane Ernesto, the power company reported.

Shelly Leman, a managing director, said outages from the storm topped 28,817 at midday on August 17, with electricity restored to 28,650 customers by this afternoon.

She added: “Belco is now asking customers who remain without power to please call 955 to report their outage.

“Residents are also asked to check on neighbours and relatives, especially the elderly, to make sure they have had their power restored.”

Ms Leman said Ernesto hit 51 main lines that needed to be repaired.

She added: “During Ernesto’s restoration process, crews have also had to contend with pole fires and other emergencies, with some repairs taking many hours as crews had to cut back trees and replace damaged poles and transformers that caused additional delays in restoring power to customers.”

Ms Leman said the most important step residents could take to prepare for storms was to make sure that trees on their property were clear of power lines.

She highlighted: “Ensuring that vegetation on private property remains ten feet away from power lines is the sole responsibility of property owners.”

Residents can call 295-5111 or e-mail treetrimming@belco.bm three weeks in advance to schedule a power shutdown to trim safely.

Ms Leman thanked customers for their patience while crews carried out restorations.

She said: “Crews have worked tirelessly until midnight and beyond every night and, once restoration work began, within approximately 48 hours there were less than 2,000 customers remaining without power.

“As with previous storms, the vast majority of outages were caused by trees and foliage on private property hitting power lines.”

Ms Leman highlighted that weather forecasters had warned of “a very active September, with the likelihood of further hurricanes”.

She urged property owners to check for trees near power lines, and act to have them pruned back.

Ms Leman said: “On behalf of all our staff and the people of Bermuda, I would like to again thank our hard-working crews for their tireless work and dedication getting Bermuda back up and running as quickly and safely as possible.”