Hurricane Fabian, the election and its aftermath, murders and murder trials and tragedies at sea dominated local news in 2003.

On September 5, Category Three Hurricane Fabian lashed the Island with gusts winds of at least 150 mph ? recording equipment at Bermuda Weather Service as destroyed by seas up to eight feet high crashed into its building.

Fabian was the first Category Three storm to hit the Island in at least 40 years. The Island was effectively cut off for several days after the storm with tourists holed up in hotel lobbies and residents sightseeing and repairing their homes. Initially 25,000 of 32,000 homes were without power.

Two Police officers and a Police civilian, P.c. Stephen Symons, 37, P.c. Nicole O'Connor, 29 and duty station officer Gladys Saunders, 48 were swept from the Causeway in the early afternoon as waves pounded the artery to St. George's parish.

Civilian Manuel Pacheco, 23, was also lost on the causeway at about the same time. Only the body of P.c. Simons has been recovered. An insurer estimated more than $125 million in claims could be made in Fabian's aftermath ? and even that figure did not include damage to Government buildings and hotels.

The Fairmont Southampton and the Sonesta hotels remain closed for significant repairs this winter.

While a US Coast Guard plane from North Carolina flew overhead at dawn, the Bermuda Regiment, construction companies, boatyards and hardware stores rushed into action on September 6, setting off in a feverish pace to restore the Island to its former beauty.

Fabian was blamed for the collapse of a battered sea wall on Harbour Road in October. Harbour Road was closed for a day, causing massive traffic jams.

The Causeway was closed to motor traffic for a few days after Fabian hit as road crews affected temporary repairs and the bridge was back to normal by late November.

But Bermuda had already experienced its first sea tragedy of the year months earlier.

The boat sank 80 miles northeast of Bermuda on January 7 after a freak wave hit the boat and two of three men on board were killed.

Micah Battersbee, 29, and Alan Edness, 56, were lost at sea while skipper Robert (Bobby) Lambe was rescued by a passing US Navy hospital ship on its way to the Persian Gulf.

The bodies of Mr. Battersbee and Mr. Edness were never recovered.

Then, in March, Italian waiter Aldo Balia, 35, was recovered from Hamilton Harbour after he went missing four days earlier.

The Portofino's waiter had been making his way back to his yacht which was anchored off Hinson's Island.

More recently, fisherman Sam Outerbridge, 55, went missing from his boat in November. His boat was discovered floating empty three and a half miles off Castle Island. His body was never recovered.

And tragedy was again upon us when the body of Kevin Thompson was found floating at The Scaur in Sandys on Boxing Day.

The 43-year-old man had been living on his boat the for three months. His body was discovered by an off duty Policeman.

While there was much tragedy at sea over the past year, some were more lucky than others.

In June, a cruise ship rescued two stranded sailors, Americans Tim Kent, 50, and Richard McKenna, 39, clinging to the hull of their upturned boat 110 miles north west of Bermuda.

After several sightings and salvage missions, the 50-foot sailboat , which was involved in the Around Alone race, was picked up and brought back to Bermuda.

And 2003 was also the year solo sailor Alan Paris made history on the water.

Mr. Paris competed in the Around Alone yacht race and became the first Bermudian to circumnavigate the world single-handedly.

Finance Minister Eugene Cox was hospitalised twice within the months of February and March after taking ill and he missed the Budget debate in the House of Assembly.

The highest ranking Bermudian British Army history, Maj. Gen. Glyn Gilbert died of prostate cancer on September 26 at age 84.

Leading member of the desegregation movement, Dr. Stanley Ratteray died on February 9 of natural causes. The 'quiet revolutionary' was 68 years old.

Former Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux died at the age of 65 on August 22. Mr. Justice Meerabux made international headlines in 1998 when he ruled that Justis Smith be acquitted because had "no case to answer" in the trial for the murder of Canadian teenager Rebecca Middleton.

The Bermuda College's first president, Dr. Archie Hallett, died on October 3 at the age of 65.

Restaurateur and avid golfer Fritz Reiter who passed away after a two-year battle with cancer on February 3. He was 62.

Eugene Lloyd (Josh) Smith, 58, was found dead behind the Hamilton Parish Workmen's Club. Originally thought to be from foul play, a pathologist found the death was accidental.

On April 14, Dennis Lamb, 78, owner of the legendary Dennis' Hideaway restaurant in St. David's died.and the arts community lost photographer and graphic artist Arthur Bean, 41, on November 20.

Fatal road collisions took the lives of ten people this year. Six-year-old Tyaisha Cox was run over on a crosswalk after getting off a bus outside her summer school in August.

Less than a week after Tyaisha was knocked down, 24-year-old Dellano Burch died from head injuries after attempting to overtake a vehicle and collided with another car travelling in the opposite direction.

The ninth road fatality occurred less than a week after Mr. Burch when pillion passenger Alshe Caisey, 20, died in a crash on August 18.

Two car accidents in the span of four days in March took the lives of 19-year-old Troylisha Outerbridge on March 7 and 22-year-old Chioke "Bruiser" Spencer on March 10. Both cars were filled with young people and occurred in the early morning hours.

Another car full of young people collided with a parked trailer in the early hours of June 29 killing 15-year-old Oshea Stowe.

Store butcher Warren White, 47, was the Island's first road fatality when he was involved in a single vehicle accident at the end of January.

A visitor from Baltimore, Maryland died after a head-on crash with a taxi. Frederick Maccubbin, 50, lost control of his rental cycle trying to negotiate a sharp turn.

Laurie Joseph, 29, died in a single vehicle accident on June 10. The Island recorded its tenth road traffic accident during the early hours of December 17 when Nicholas DeRosa, 47, was involved in a single vehicle accident while riding his motorcycle.

Tragedy struck the Bermuda College in February when teacher Andrea Trott Bicari, 34, was crushed under a retaining wall and embankment at the college. Her death was ruled to be accidental by the Coroner in November.

A Belco engineer died after he was involved in an electrical explosion in July. Malik Blyden, 24, received lacerations to his head as well as severe burns to his face, neck, arms and legs and eventually died from his wounds after being airlifted to a hospital in the US.

Bermudian Greg Daniels, 52, was apparently murdered in his Jamaican home in August. Jamaican police believe two men attacked him with machetes while he was in his garden.

Bermuda's infrastructure also suffered a beating from Hurricane Fabian. Notable visits to the Island in 2003 included Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, in October when he met with the families of the victims of Hurricane Fabian and assessed the damage.

Exiled segregation activist Kingsley Tweed returned to Bermuda to support the Progressive Labour Party in the run up to the election. Mr. Tweed was a pivotal player during the 1959 theatre boycott movement and fled the Island in 1961 after he reportedly received several threats on his life.

Harry Belafonte arrived in Bermuda in early October to host a student workshop. The singer, actor and human rights activist treated 125 students to his musical talents and important life lessons.

Winston Churchill's daughter Lady Mary Soames visited the Island in November to attend the Churchill Conference that marked 50 years of the summit that involved Churchill, US President Dwight Eisenhower and French Premier Joseph Laniel.

Chief Justice Austin Ward, 67, will retire at the end of his current term and Court of Appeals President Sir James Astwood along with appeals judge Philip Clough retired this year.

New appointments to the judiciary included the appointment of Ian Kawaley and Charles-Etta Simmons as Puisne Judges in July.

Deputy Governor Nick Carter was sworn in on June 30 and incumbent Lawson Mapp was voted in as Hamilton Mayor on October 9.

And down in the Old Town, E. Michael Jones' loud cries as Town Crier led to loud cries of victory after winning the mayoral election in St. George's.

In general news events this year, a Government report demanded better care be provided for the Packwood nursing home after complaints that one resident had a three-inch bed sore in April.

Defence lawyers boycotted legal aid cases because they wanted their fees to be raised in February.

An agreement reached by the Bermuda Bar Council and the Health Ministry raised their rates by 100 percent in April.

Internationally, the year was marked by a war with Iraq and ended with the capturing of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in December.

Internationally, the US-led invasion in Iraq in March saw at least four Bermudian soldiers fighting in the Middle East. And thousands of Bermudians joined millions of anti-war activists around the world in staging a peace rally in February.

Severe Acute Respitory Syndrome (SARS) became a global problem after hitting China and Canada causing global travel warnings which included Toronto as a major risk city for SARS.

On August 15, areas of the northeast and Midwest US and parts of Canada were at the centre of a major power outage. The blackout caused flight cancellations into the Island and left major cities in darkness, some for two days.