MEDIA RELEASE

The Hawaii Electric Light Company (HELCO) dispatch crew working on Tuesday, January 6, 2015. Photo courtesy of HELCO

HILO, January 6, 2015 (5:30 p.m.) – Hawai‘i Electric Light crews continue to make progress in restoring service to customers affected by a storm system that passed through the islands last Friday and Saturday. Today, service was restored in lower and upper Puna, Kohala, and some areas in Āhualoa and Honoka‘a.

About 120 customers remain without power, primarily along the Hāmākua coast and Wood Valley, as of 4:00 p.m. Crews will work through the night to complete repairs. Repairs are expected to be completed tonight for most areas except for a remote area in Waipi‘o Valley.

Hawai‘i Electric Light reminds the community to be safe and treat downed power lines as energized and dangerous. Do not handle or move any fallen or damaged utility equipment. If someone is injured by a downed power line, do not approach them. Call 9-1-1 for assistance. Customers who remain without power are asked to call 969-6666.

Hawai‘i Electric Light operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The company and its employees are prepared to respond before, during, and after natural disasters. The community is familiar with seeing line crews in the field, but hundreds more employees work around the clock, behind the scenes to serve customers. They include system and power plant operators, power plant maintenance personnel, substation personnel, engineering assessment teams, dispatchers, customer service representatives, warehouse, and other support personnel.

About 46,000 customers were without power at one time or another during the storm. When the storm passed through Hawai‘i Island, the company received about 6,700 outage calls over a two-day period. The company normally receives an average of 50 calls daily. To better serve customers, some employees from around the island were reassigned to help answer phones, manage outage reports, and follow up with customers. These employees reach out and connect with customers and help improve the efficiency of our response operations.

“Hawai‘i Electric Light employees are committed to safely restoring service as quickly as possible,” said spokesperson Rhea Lee. “We live here, we work here, and we raise our families here. We understand the responsibility we have to our community, and we will do our best to serve our customers.”