Residents forced to go another night without power after second Downtown outage

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Residents and businesses in Downtown Honolulu and Chinatown will remain in the dark for another night. Hawaiian Electric (HECO) crews will continue work overnight. HECO hopes to restore power by noon on Wednesday, June 19.

Smoke seen rising from a manhole on Bethel Street was a result of a fire that damaged 12 underground cables beyond repair, according to HECO. Three thousand HECO customers were left without power shortly before 9 p.m. on Monday. Scores of businesses and city offices were forced to shut down the following morning.

“The lobby was filled with older people and people in wheelchairs because they can’t go up to their homes. So it’s frustrating. The businesses are yelling at me, screaming at me, asking me, ‘What can they do?’” stated Downtown-Chinatown Neighborhood Board Chair, Ernest Carvalho.

It’s the second major power outage in the area in less than a week. Last Thursday on Jun 13, Downtown Honolulu was a chaotic scene with confused and unprepared shopowners and residents.

“It’s just really frustrating because it just keeps happening consistently and more often,” said Darien Murosaki, The Pig & The Lady employee.

According to HECO, the company will upgrade equipment at the Iwilei substation as a short-term solution. These upgrades are expected to be completed by the end of July.

“Longer term, we’re going to accelerate the process of replacing the and upgrading the underground cables that bring power into the downtown area,” said HECO Spokesperson, Darren Pai.

Many of the underground lines are 50 to 60 years old and due for a replacement, Pai added.

Normally, part of Downtown and Chinatown are bustling with activity but the streets were near empty during Tuesday’s lunch rush. Popular downtown eateries like The Pig & The Lady said they lose thousands of dollars during prolonged outages.

“Maybe like $20,000, I would say, because we do lunch, dinner, catering. It’s terrible. I can’t sleep,” stated Alex Le, The Pig & The Lady Co-owner. “We’re trying to be prepared today so we can kind of take care of our products, our food, our refrigerators and stuff.”

Le rented out backup generators for the day hoping to salvage his restaurant’s meal preparations. Unfortunately, much of the six to eight hours of work that goes into preparing just for lunch were still wasted, per Le. He also had to cancel about 400 reservations because of the outage.

“We know that it’s very frustrating and disruptive to lose power like this,” said Pai. “We apologize to them for the disruption. We appreciate their patience and we want them to know that we’re working as quickly as we can.”

The City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Transportation Services (DTS) is informing motorists and pedestrians all out-of-service signalized intersections are all-way stops. Officers with the Honolulu Police Department will be at major intersections in Downtown and Chinatown to help direct traffic.

HECO stated crews will work overnight to restore power by noon on Wednesday. If you believe any of your electronics were damaged from the power outage, you can file a claim with HECO within 30 days of the outage.