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| A guy enjoys the wind from Hurricane Gonzalo as it approached Bermuda Friday afternoon. |
The official strongest winds at the Bermuda airport peaked at a sustained 93 mph with gusts to 113 mph. See the video of the storm at the bottom of this post.
At last report, there were no deaths on the island. As you'd guess, damage was extensive, but not as bad as you'd expect, given the extreme winds.
After Hurricane Fabian slammed Bermuda in 2003, causing a huge disaster, buildings, roads and pretty much everything else were reinforced beyond even the strong structural codes in place before Fabian.
This time, with Gonzalo, the airport re-opened within 24 hours of Gonzalo's passage. Almost everybody lost electricity on the island and most roads were blocked by fallen trees, but they were cleaning things up Saturday.
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| Wind and waves pick up on Bermuda Friday as Hurricane Gonzalo approached. |
Most of the island's major hotels suffered only minor damage, but they remained opened and things are going along nicely there.
I saw a photo from storm chaser Jim Edds (@ExtremeStorms) who sat down for a nice hamburger and fries served to him at a hotel during the eye of the storm.
Storm preparedness works. Just look to Bermuda for Exhibit A.
One weird thing people saw on Bermuda during the highest winds of Gonzalo is that their toilets started to gurgle and drain.
According to David Mersereau, writing for The Vane, the high winds passing over plumbing roof vents caused little pockets of low pressure over the the top of the vents. The low pressure causes air inside the vent to rise into it to fill the vaccuum up at the top.
If that sucking air is strong enough, it can also draw water, making the toilets partly drain. The water returns to the toilet when the wind subsides, causing the low pressure at the top of the vent to go away.
Here's that video montage of some scenes from Hurricane Gonzalo in Bermuda:
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