All customers who lost power during Hurricane Ernesto have had electricity restored, Belco confirmed today.

All remaining customers who had gone more than a week in the dark were back on the grid by 5pm yesterday.

Shelly Leman, Belco’s managing director, said: “Hurricane Ernesto affected 51 of our main line circuits, and the highest number of outages was experienced at noon on Saturday, August 17, with 28,817 customers out.

“While tropical storm force winds from Hurricane Ernesto began impacting the island in the late afternoon on Friday, August 16, by the evening of Saturday, August 17, tropical storm force winds were still present when preliminary restoration activity began.

“However, in the interest of safety for our crews, full restoration began in earnest on the morning of Sunday, August 18, when there was available daylight to perform full damage assessments and once winds had subsided to allow aerial repair works.”

Ms Leman said that more than 20,000 customers had power restored by 5pm that Sunday.

She added that crews continued to work until midnight every day until full power came back online yesterday.

Ms Leman said that the last customers had to wait longer for power because there was deeper infrastructural damage which required larger teams.

In other places, bucket trucks could not be used for repair work because of the small roads, which required crews to climb utility poles themselves to fix damages.

Workers faced pole fires and other emergencies, while some branches needed to be cut to allow for repairs, which caused longer delays.

Ms Leman said: “Customers are reminded that the most important action residents can take to prepare for storms is to ensure that trees on their property are clear of power lines.

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

She added: “We appreciate the patience of our customers who experienced extended power outages lasting several days.

“I would also like to thank our teams who worked tirelessly for long hours to restore power to our customers.”

• Property owners can call 295-5111 or e-mail treetrimming@belco.bm three weeks in advance to schedule a power shutdown for safe trimming