Winds from Hurricane Wilma lashed the northwestern Bahamas on Monday, flooding parts of Grand Bahama and Bimini, knocking out power and cable and forcing some residents to take refuge in their attics.
The outer bands of the same storm that brought ruin over the weekend to resort towns along Mexico’s Yucatan Coast and plowed into Florida early Monday morning, whipped through New Providence yesterday with gusts of over 40 mph and intermittent showers.
In Grand Bahama, believed to have been the hardest hit by Wilma, unofficial records put winds at up to 96 mph in some parts of the island, according to the Met Office. (See story page 1).
Power outages were reported in some areas of New Providence throughout the course of the day, as well as phone and cable interruptions. Hurricane Wilma also affected local water pressure until the late afternoon and knocked out Cable Bahamas’ Internet services.
By 4pm weather conditions in New Providence had started to improve and were expected to be back to normal by around 8pm Monday.
“The winds have now dropped a whole lot and the clouds are beginning to move off as the hurricane (moves away),” Jeffrey Simmons of the Met Office told The Bahama Journal yesterday.
At one point, Hurricane Wilma, which affected the Bahamas as a strong Category 2 storm, and at some points a Category 3, was the strongest, most intense Atlantic hurricane in terms of barometric pressure and the most rapidly strengthening on record.
Conditions yesterday varied significantly on the northern and southern shorelines in New Providence. On South Beach, gusts of more than 40 mph stirred up the seas producing white caps and downed tree branches littered the streets. In contrast, Saunders Beach was relatively calm.
Residents of New Providence packed grocery stores and water depots to stock up on hurricane supplies, but it was not the “mad house” normally seen when a storm is approaching, said Golden Gates Super Value manager Livingston Armbrister.
“We were busy this morning when we opened, for about two to three hours, but after that it died down. People were buying mostly canned goods, soup, bread, things that they can use in the hurricanes,” said Mr Armbrister.
“But it was relaxed, nobody really panicked this time. Normally it’s a mad house and you can’t find anything on the shelf, but it wasn’t like that this time.”
Despite repeated warnings from meteorologists to stay indoors, it appeared to be business as usual for most of the island. Many stores were open and traffic flowed smoothly throughout the streets; however, government schools and offices were closed Monday.
Peter Henriquez, who has been wind surfing for about 15 years, took advantage of yesterday’s tropical storm winds to go wind surfing off South Beach, where gusts were recorded at close to 40 mph.
“South Beach is a very shallow area and you have very few obstructions in the water. It’s an onshore breeze and it allows you to get back to land safely if there is any trouble,” Mr Henriquez told The Bahama Journal.
Meanwhile, record-breaking Tropical Depression Alpha, which dumped rain on the southern Bahamas, was no longer expected to affect the Bahamas as it moved north, into the Atlantic Ocean. All warnings for Alpha had been discontinued by yesterday afternoon and the weather system was expected to merge with Hurricane Wilma off the northeast of Abaco by late Monday night.
As a tropical storm, Alpha drenched Haiti and the Dominican Republic with torrential rain Sunday, killing at least five people and forcing thousands from their homes, before weakening over the mountains of Hispaniola.
Alpha, which formed south of the Dominican Republic on Saturday, became the record-breaking 22nd named storm of the 2005 Atlantic season, rumbling ashore near the south with maximum winds of 50 mph and dousing the region with showers.
“We have been spared the full wrath of the hurricane, even though Grand Bahama, Abaco and Bimini experienced hurricane force winds that might have done some damage,” said Arthur Rolle of the Met Office.
By: Erica Wells, The Bahama Journal
