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Widespread power failure darkens the Big Island Saturday night

By Baron Sekiya and Karin Stanton | Hawaii 24/7

UPDATE, 11 p.m.

All power has been restored to the Big Island. About 63,000 customers were left in the dark when at 8:37 p.m. when Hamakua Energy Partners’ (HEP), HELCO’s Keahole Plant generators and HRD Wind Farm in Kohala unexpectedly tripped off-line. As a result of this sudden loss of generation, customers located in various locations throught the island were turned-off automatically to protect the rest of the system.

Additional generation was immediately started and service to some customers was restored. HEP and Keaohole Power Plant came back online and power was restored to all customers at 9:37 p.m. according to HELCO.

No further problems are expected.

The Fire Department reported no emergency calls related to the outage.

UPDATE, 10 p.m.

The recording on the HELCO trouble line acknowledges power is out in ‘various’ parts of the island. Crews are out working on the problem, but the recording said there was no estimate of when power might be fully restored.

Still reported without power: parts of Waimea; Pepeekeo, RoadRunner and TimeWarner cable

Back up: Alii Drive; Kohala Estates; Hawaiian Shores; Hawaiian Paradise Park; Pahoa; Waikoloa

UPDATE, 9:45 p.m.

Officials called Saturday evening’s blackout “fairly widespread” across the Big Island.

According to reports on Twitter, power went down from Hilo to Kona and north to Waikoloa, Waimea and Kawaihae. Reports of darkness in Puna, too.

Power remained on in Kaloko and the airport area. South of Hina Lani Road was mostly in darkness at 9:45 p.m.

Police reported the outage began shortly before 9 p.m. and rolled across the island, although some areas were not affected.

Most power was restored around 9:30 p.m.

Early reports indicate a generator problem on the Kona side might have been to blame.

Just after 8:30 p.m. a widespread power failure plunged much of the Big Island into darkness Saturday night (July 3).

Little is known at this time other than it was widespread as Hawaii 24/7 got twitter reports from Waikoloa, Waimea and Puna.

As of about 9 p.m. power was restored to Hawaiian Paradise Park, Waimea and Kurtistown reporting in.

Although parts of Kona reportedly did not lose power other parts were out.

Aaron Stene in Kona tweeted, “Power cut out when Me and Mart were watching the Last Airbender. Most of Kailua-Kona was still out.”

Cable TV and internet services from Oceanic Time-Warner were reportedly out on the island.

3 Responses to “Widespread power failure darkens the Big Island Saturday night”

  1. guest says:

    i think mufi when hit one BIGGGGG electric pole and das what when make da power go out!!!

  2. lavapix says:

    Never lost power up in Mauka Holualoa. Have real bad smoke up here since late in the afternoon. Definitely fire type and not fireworks. Worse then when we had the big fire last year. Anyone know of a high elevation fire? Its still choking bad this morning.

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