Tempestuous times

...And the budget beat goes on! That is until it is ratified by the House of Assembly at the end of the month.  I won't bore you with the details but this little tit bit caught my eye regarding a certain 'Hustle Truck.' The locals are up in arms about it and the fact there is no $$$ for it in the budget, so it sparked my interest. 


Well, after some googling it appears that it is indeed a real shame that this is being cut, along with many other charities' budgets. Introduced by the previous Labour Minister in 2007, the Hustle Truck was billed as the answer to "one of Bermuda's most enduring social problems of wall-sitting." H.U.S.T.L.E stands for Helping Unemployed Sustain Themselves Limited Employment. The truck picks people up willing to work but unable to get jobs for various reasons, e.g. criminal records, illiteracy or age discrimination etc., in the morning and takes them to work sites to perform casual landscaping, cleaning and general manual labour. Some days as many as 100 people hustled onto the two tonne trucks for a chance to earn up to $550 a week. Tasks completed over the years include a Boaz Island Youth Centre, removing rubbish at Gulf Stream in Soutside and removing graffiti from school grounds. Seems like a win-win to me and sad that it's losing out.

Also, wasn't I only saying in the last post how rising gun crime was one of the island's biggest issues? Well, someone give me a parliamentary seat as sadly last week saw the second shooing fatality of 2011. A 26 year old guy, who's girlfriend was expecting their baby - a true tragedy. A 29 year man was also fatally shot on February 4. A court case running at the moment on a murder that took place last year has heard that the gun in that shooting has been linked to February murder, along with others. This confirms Police suspicions of a small number of guns being recycled within gangs as the tit-for-tat killings go on.  It will be interesting to see if the huge Police budget cuts are still passed at the end of the month.


Continuing this stormy waters theme, we move onto art. It is expected that the "Tempest" exhibition from Bermudian artist, Rebecca Hanson, will create "a storm of interest" (nice pun www.bernews.com!).  Inspired by the three most destructive recent hurricanes, the show is named after the Shakespeare play that it is claimed is based on the real-life ship wreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 leading to the settling of Bermuda. Yep, you heard it right fact finders, another claim to fame for this little island.

So that's earth (landscaping), wind (hurricane art) and now fire! Bernews is reporting a large-scale fire at Riddell's Bay Golf Course this evening. The extent of the damage is at this stage is unknown but I doubt it risks Bermuda's reputation as home to more golf courses per square mile than anywhere in the entire world. And another claim to fame... they just keep on coming!!

Piecing back together paradise

It's now four day since the lovely Hurricane Igor paid us a visit and it's almost as if it never happened. We were pretty lucky in the end as it was downgraded to a Category 1 rather than a Category 3 storm as original forecast. It was still a pretty harrowing experience. 


From Saturday evening until Monday morning Igor had us under house arrest and with all the shutters closed it felt like a bunker. Me and my housemates took turns sitting on the front step just to get a breath of freedom. I cooked up enough complex carbs to last me a month, although it was over within 36 hrs. Igor was doing his worst in the wee small hours of Monday and that's when we lost power, not such a hardship at bedtime. It was pretty intense watching it from my window, although it was dark there was a strange rusty haze in the air (probably all the sand it had picked up en route) and it was bending palm trees back like unloaded sling shots. 


By morning the main casualty of the storm had already been identified as the Government ferry, Bermudian, which has been grounded on rocks off St. Georges ever since despite so far unsuccessful attempts to refloat her. The main concern here being the economic effects of this boat being out of action as it is used to ferry cruise passengers ashore. Get well soon!

We had power back by 9am so after a few hours of crisis PR for my cable TV and home insurance clients I was off to survey the damage to my little world. I almost cried when I saw my beloved Elbow beach but refrained so to avoid looking like a lone depressive walking the sands of a Nicholas Sparks novel. Some pics here of the extensive beach erosion, which forced the Government to close Elbow to the public until further notice, as well as the breathtaking Cooper's Island Nature Reserve. 


I've always boasted about the natural beauty of Bermuda but it's at times like these you appreciate why even supermodels need a bit of botox help to achieve perfection. The beaches have been undergoing some airbrushing of their own this week with the help of a few tractors. As this picture from Bernews shows they are literally rebuilding paradise.

The locals have seemed fairly non-plused about the whole thing as really this is nothing if you lived through Hurricane Fabian or Emily. At the end of the day, no one died. As an outsider it was impressive to see the way everyone really pulled together at a time of crisis. You couldn't fail to walk ten paces without being told by a stranger to "stay safe". 


The stars of the show had to be local electricity company, BELCO, who has managed to restore all but 1,000 of, at one stage, 25,000 outages in just a few days. They also pulled off a PR coup by taking to twitter as @BELCOBERMUDA to provide regular updates, highlighting the speed of the recovery mission and all the time apologising profoundly to those without power. To date there has been no backlash just understanding, patience and thanks, even from those left in the dark without water. The Government also needs a shout out for getting the roads cleared within hours of Igor passing. 


Then there's the astounding Patricia Burchall of Bernews, who kept the community updated throughout with news, photos, videos and opinions. 


I can imagine surviving Igor being a far more daunting experience without social media. Facebook and Twitter were a hive of activity as members of the public checked in on each other, swapped anecdotes and kept each other company virtually. Throughout the storm I knew what was happening at the other end of the island so the aftermath was less shocking with the sting of the element surprise removed from its tail. And there is less hearsay when you've seen the pictures and video footage first hand.


But alas where there is light, there is always shady. There has been five gun incidents in the wake of Igor so if nature trying to reek havoc wasn't enough, people are trying to finish each other off. Shocking. There has also been reports of looting and the Premier condemned bus drivers for halting services on Tuesday despite it being obvious to the untrained eye that all that stood in their way really was a few piles of leaves and broken branches. Tut tut.


Any hoo, 'survive hurricane' is one I can cross of my list of things to do before I am 30. Along with 'receive jelly fish sting', which I begrudgingly ticked off this evening. Clearly the universe realises that time is running out before my deadline. Grrrr.