KAILUA-KONA — The word of the day in West Hawaii on Monday was inconvenience as a fiber-optic cable break caused major disruptions to the communications grid throughout the island’s leeward region.
At approximately 11 a.m., Hawaiian Telecom suffered a break in its fiber-optic cable between Kalaoa and Waikoloa which led to downed internet connections, malfunctioning land lines and erratic cellphone coverage up and down much of the island’s west side; 911 services also were disrupted.
The cause was impact from a tree in a remote area off Mamalahoa Highway, according to a release from Hawaiian Telecom. The same release indicated the location of the damage rendered the repair process more complicated and less timely than it would have been otherwise. Most services were restored shortly before 3 p.m.
“Our focus was on the repair efforts and restoring service as quickly as possible,” Ann Nishida Fry, senior manager for Hawaiian Telecom’s department of corporate communications, said in an email. “We estimate that impact was in the thousands (of customers), but please note that not all customers lost service.”
Affected areas included Kailua-Kona, Naalehu, Pahala and Hawaiian Ocean View Estates.
The primary concerns were disruptions to financial and medical infrastructure, but backup systems allowed institutions to navigate and largely offset the loss of electronic communication functions.
Judy Donovan, regional director of marketing for Kona Community Hospital, said all medical facilities, police and fire stations have analog lines dedicated for emergencies, some of which are attached to fax machines and allow communication when the system goes down.
The hospital also has access to satellite phones. Its internet connection was never disrupted.
She added KCH’s biggest issues Monday were communicating with incoming staff and trying to head off concerns of families with loved ones in the hospital who might have been worried crucial care services were interrupted.
Donovan said such services were not interrupted and the hospital had no instances of concerned people rushing in frantically.
“The community is less punchy when communications are down than we used to be,” she explained. “And we never had a problem getting in touch with emergency responders.”
Because 911 services were temporarily affected, however, the community was advised to go to the nearest police station, fire station or medical facility in case of emergency.
One area the hospital did run into difficulty was with electronic payments, and it wasn’t alone.
“It was a pain in the butt, but we were able to function still,” said Aileen Stauffer, assistant manager at Annie’s Island Fresh Burgers in Kealakekua. “I’ve been here for nearly two years and this has happened a few other times. This was more severe and was probably one of the more annoying ones.”
Those who couldn’t pay with cash were required to fill out paper credit card forms, Stauffer said. Employees began physically entering backlogged credit and debit card information into the computer system once it came back online a little before 3 p.m.
The type of services unavailable varied by location, as some cellphones that didn’t work in Kailua Village were functional farther south toward Keauhou Bay.
The Subway at the Keauhou Shopping Center was only accepting cash, while the Safeway on Henry Street reportedly never lost its ability to electronically charge for groceries in real time.
Tricia Buskirk, president and CEO of Hawaii Community Federal Credit Union, said the fiber-optic cable break also caused sporadic malfunctioning of ATM machines, compounding the problem of customers paying for products and business services throughout the area.
But the development didn’t lead to higher foot traffic at HCFCU branches Monday, which is typically a heavy traffic day for the bank anyway.
Buskirk added that the bank’s stand-in mode allowed cardholders to make debit and credit card purchases in stores that still had functioning machines. The transactions were stored digitally and accounts were updated once the computer system came back online.
“The bigger impact, I’d say, was our online banking and our mobile banking weren’t working,” Buskirk said. “Emails were not coming in and out through our network, and members weren’t able to get in through our phone system. We couldn’t call out either.
“It was mostly an inconvenience.”
Email Max Dible at mdible@westhawaiitoday.com.
