Despite hurricane-force gusts of wind, rain, and rumours of its closure, the Causeway remained open throughout yesterday?s storm.

But almost 2,000 homes lost electrical power, and an infant inside a car had a narrow escape when a tree blew down on top of the vehicle as winds gusted to 65 knots.

Works and Engineering engineers and the Police Service inspected the Causeway yesterday and determined: ?It is safe to cross, given the direction of the wind... and the level of the tides?.

The situation was monitored throughout the night.

?The Causeway wasn?t even that bad, it was Kindley Field that was bad,? said one St. George?s resident last night. ?There was hardly any traffic (around 5.30 p.m.), it was all moving relatively quickly.?

A Bermuda Weather Service spokesperson said a hurricane-force gust of 65 knots was recorded at 4.15 p.m. yesterday. At that time the Fire Service was called to Orange Valley Road in Devonshire, where a tree had blown onto a car with an infant inside.

Fortunately, Fire spokesman Lt. Dana Lovell said the infant escaped injury.

The number of homes without power was expected to fluctuate throughout the night as Belco crews made repairs. It had been reduced from 1,800 to around 800 by 6.30 p.m.

The circuit at Fractious Street feeding the North Shore/Shelley Bay/Radnor Road area went out last night, and crews had to cancel repairs due to the weather.

?It is possible that approximately 300 people will be out for the rest of the night as a result of that,? said Belco spokesperson Linda Smith last night. ?They will obviously be the priority first thing in the morning.?

The first two Belco circuits went out at 3.15 p.m., at which time Belco also experienced outages relating to two large branch lines.

?We had a big blast around 4 p.m. (when winds gusted to hurricane force),? said Ms Smith. ?At 4 p.m. we lost another 10 circuits.?

Ms Smith said last night she expected the number of outages and customers affected ?will go up and down all night?.

?Crews will work except under weather conditions such as lightning or extremely heavy winds,? she said. ?It?s going to be a night of outages, and we will respond to them.?

Crews were expected to work up until around midnight, at which point they were stood down in order to be fresh for repairs this morning.

Belco cancelled planned outages in the St. George?s area for today in order to keep those crews available for emergency repairs, said Ms Smith. Extra crews were prepared yesterday morning in anticipation of the outages the storm was expected to cause.

High winds ripped through the City of Hamilton, while winds on North Shore hurled a boat awning into a tree near the Shelley Bay Marketplace, which the Fire Service removed.

Fire personnel were also called to a residence in Devonshire, where winds had blown the door off a home, and to cover the roof at one residence which had not been repaired since Hurricane Fabian.

Employees from the ACE group of companies were all sent home early yesterday amidst rumours of the Causeway?s closure, and one witness said Hamilton looked like ?a city being evacuated? shortly before 5 p.m.

However, public transportation, including the ferries, ran as scheduled last night, save for one ferry to Dockyard, which had to be cancelled thanks to the weather.

The inclement weather also resulted in the cancellation of last night?s public forum at Sandys Middle School, the last in a series of forums on ?Effective Strategies for Developing Boys in Bermuda?.

Winds began to drop throughout the evening to about 35 knots.

A gale force warning is expected to be in effect throughout today and Saturday, as winds are not predicted to drop beneath 30 knots until Saturday night.