Tourists take shelter as hurricane strikes Bermuda

Islanders have bolted themselves inside or fled to hotels, some of which were being battered by the pelting rains.

Airports are closed and all flights to Bermuda have been cancelled. Hundreds of people have been evacuated.

Reporter Paul Watson, holidaying at the island’s £2,000 a week Harmony Club when the hurricane struck, spoke to guests as they sat through the extreme storm.

They were evacuated from their chalets and apartments to spend a tense day in the main reception of the complex which has already suffered some damage.

The eye of the hurricane was expected to make its direct hit on the island at about 7pm local time (11pm BST) and is bringing fear and apprehension with it.

Many guests had checked out early, catching flights home before the hurricane struck. Those that remained were kept informed of events across the 21-square mile island by a small radio behind the oak bar of the complex’s lounge, which for long periods has been proving a popular diversion.

As wind and rain lashed the windows, guests were treated to a local speciality, the rum swizzle, a heady mix of white rum, black rum, grenadine, orange juice and pineapple juice.

Earlier, at around 3pm local time (7pm BST), the lights went out and candles were placed on white wicker tables by staff and management carrying torches. Within an hour people were moved away from windows and glass doors to a more central part of the lounge as uncertainty about the hurricane increased.

Fiona Mulligan, 26, was moved to the Harmony Club from her accommodation further up the island, having only arrived in Bermuda last night.

Fiona, of Mayo, Ireland, is starting a new life on the island having just started a job with the Bank of Bermuda.

“What a welcome!” she said.

“I was afraid it would be in the news at home and wanted to let my family know I was OK.

“I only told them it was a bad storm. I didn’t use the word hurricane. It is very, very scary and very uncertain but the drink is making it a little bit easier. You feel quite powerless and I have never experienced anything like this before.”

Retired couple Pat and Christopher Chowins, of New York, were also brought into the relative safety of the Harmony Club complex from their accommodation in nearby Grape Bay.

Christopher, 77, and wife Pat, 68, originally from London before moving to the US in 1962, compared today’s atmosphere as similar to when they were evacuated from their homes during the Second World War.

Mr Chowins said: “I have never experienced anything like this. I do feel threatened. These are elements over which we have no control.

“I don’t think people really know what to do, it is all very uncertain. We were evacuated during the war and this feels exactly the same, being brought into an area where everyone is trying to help each other.”

British holidaymakers Len and Hilary Ellis of Yateley, Hampshire, are at the Harmony Club celebrating Mrs Ellis’s 50th birthday which is today. Mrs Ellis, a school librarian, said: “It is a feeling of the unknown.

“It is very traumatic, a couple of hours ago I was expecting the glass patio doors to blow in.

“Nobody seems sure what to expect and there is still a good few hours of this left.”

Mr Ellis, 50, a duty officer at Heathrow Airport, said: “This is proving an experience I will never forget.

“I don’t feel threatened or in danger and it has not been as bad as I feared.

“But only time will tell how bad it has really been because we can only see through glass windows what is happening in a small area outside.

“We will only know how bad everything is when it is all over and we can see the damage for ourselves when we can finally go outside.”

Bermuda is 3,000 miles from London and lies 650 miles east of Cape Hatteras in North Carolina It is an Atlantic resort as opposed to a Caribbean destination.