Last week’s “Kona low” storm showed us the importance of our efforts to strengthen our electric grids by the use of technology and by the labor-intensive work of managing trees and other vegetation.
On Hawaii Island, most damage occurred on the southern half of the island, between Puna and Kona. At least 13,000 customers lost power at least briefly, and while most were restored quickly, some people were out for several days. I appreciate everyone’s understanding and patience, especially those who hung in the longest without power.
The majority of the outages were scattered throughout the Puna area, which is the size of Oahu. Gusty winds toppled hundreds of trees, many on private property, and blocked roads. This made it difficult for our repair crews to assess the extent of damage, and we were reluctant to put out estimated restoration times until we knew the scope of what we were dealing with.
The power restoration process starts with repairing major transmission lines and substations that are the backbone of the electric grid. Next, distribution lines in neighborhoods are repaired before service can be restored to individual customers. We also prioritize critical service providers like hospitals, first responders, and water pumping and communications facilities.
I’m proud of the more than 200 employees who came together to get the lights back on for customers on Oahu, Maui and Hawaii Island. Many of them spent long hours away from their families, working in the wind, rain and darkness. Dozens more worked behind the scenes to manage the grid, keep power plants operating, inform the public, and ensure everyone had the resources they needed to get the job done. Crews from Oahu spent several days helping restore power on Hawaii Island and Maui.
I also want to recognize and say mahalo to our government partners at the federal, state and county levels who managed and coordinated the statewide effort to keep communities safe and help residents and businesses who experienced storm damage. The support we received from emergency responders and maintenance crews who cleared roadways and helped with tree trimming and debris removal allowed us restore power quicker.
Hawaiian Electric has Incident Management Teams in each county that are trained to respond to emergencies, and in this event, we activated as one unified group to oversee recovery on the five islands we serve. As we always do after an incident, we’ll review our response and discuss what went well and what we need to work on.
I know some customers were frustrated because it was difficult to reach us, and I’m sorry for that. Our call volume was extremely heavy despite support from customer service representatives on all islands and the mainland. Our social media team tried to fill the gap by helping customers who reached out on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
People were also frustrated that we couldn’t give them better restoration estimates — would it be hours or days before the power comes back on? That’s something else we’ll work on.
In the future, the advanced electric meters and other grid technology we’re installing will make outage restoration faster, because we’ll have quicker visibility of which customers are without power. And we’re planning a comprehensive resilience strategy that will harden key portions of our grid and aim more resources at managing vegetation in problem areas. Many trees that threaten our lines are on private property, and customers can do their part by cutting them back before the next storm.
The storm hit us right after a mild hurricane season that ended on Nov. 30 and was a good reminder to always be prepared. We’ll do our part by making our island grids more resilient and improving the customer experience during emergencies.
Scott Seu is president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric.