Restoring Lahaina power is critical to rebuilding

LAHAINA — A year and a half since the devastating Maui wildfires destroyed Lahaina town, Jeremy DelosReyes is still in a dark place.

He is working through many frustrations while rebuilding his life and his fire-leveled Ainakea Street home in Lahaina, where the nation’s deadliest fire in more than a century killed at least 102 people and destroyed more than 2,200 structures.

DelosReyes, whose roots in Lahaina go back generations, has seen his struggles exacerbated since the County of Maui Department of Water Supply months ago erroneously installed the water meter outside of its original location, leaving it too close to the neighbor’s meter to accommodate Hawaiian Electric’s plans to put a light pole in the middle.

He said the light pole situation is just one more complication getting in the way of some of his decision making and potentially delaying or increasing the cost of his rebuild — which is already tenuous given the gap between the $430,000 insurance payment and the estimated $1.2 mil-lion that it would now take to rebuild the 2,200-square-foot home.

DelosReyes said he could technically use generators and navigate around a few other construction issues because he is an experienced homebuilder. Still, he said that his ohana, which is on its fifth temporary housing situation since the fire, cannot move back home without power.

He estimated that there are about six residential lots in his Wahikuli neighborhood that also have an issue with the water meters blocking the electrical poles, and said that in addition to delaying recovery, the darkness contributes to increased thefts.

“There are rampant thefts that are happening in neighborhoods that are trying to rebuild. My house (has) no telephone poles, which means there are no street lights, and in the past three months just on my street alone, there has been 17 thefts,” DelosReyes said. “It has been proven that street lights or lighting does deter thefts.”

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser learned Thursday of a possible smidgen of light for the DelosReyes ohana. The County of Maui said in an email, “The County Department of Water Supply is working on moving that water meter and others in the area this week and expects the work to be completed by the middle of next week so HECO can install light poles.”

The county added, “The department was unaware that there had been an electric pole in the same location as the new water meter. The department will bear the cost of moving the water meter.”

DelosReyes, who has spent months petitioning Hawaiian Electric and the county, including contacting Maui Mayor Richard Bissen directly, said communication between Maui County and Hawaiian Electric needs to improve, as does communication between officials and residents.

He said he still has not been officially updated of the county’s or Hawaiian Electric’s plans for his property, and opined that the situation could have been avoided from the start.

“Why wouldn’t the county listen to the residents such as myself in the first place?” DelosReyes said. “I told them about the power pole hours before they put in the waterline, and they still put the waterline in the way that they did — so now they have to spend more resources and revenues to do the same job twice.”

The County of Maui told the Star-Advertiser that there have been similar issues at other locations along Ainakea Road and that the County Department of Water Supply has worked with Hawaiian Electric to resolve the situations, and is coordinating with Hawaiian Electric to try to avoid the same issue in the future. Together they are working to restore power as quickly as possible to fire-affected residents, which means that for now power lines that were above ground before the fire are getting restored in that way.

Shayna Decker, Hawaiian Electric’s director of government and community affairs for Maui, Molokai and Lanai, said in an email to the Star- Advertiser that the utility serves 67,000 customers on Maui and that about 3,000 customers, or about 4% of Hawaiian Electric customer accounts, were affected.

Decker said that before August 2023 and currently, more than 50% of Hawaiian Electric’s distribution lines are underground on Maui.

“Short-term rebuilding will be what served Lahaina customers prior to August 2023 in their respective areas to meet the incoming customer service requests and have residents return home as soon as possible,” she said. “For long-term rebuilding plans, we are looking at strategically undergrounding lines and additional hardening efforts that include ongoing collaboration with the community, government officials, landowners, and our regulators.”

Decker said the county determines the priority of reinstallations of streetlight locations in Lahaina.

The County of Maui said that “the entire Lahaina Impact Zone is a priority for restoring lights and power so that residents can rebuild. Specific priority areas are generally determined by locations where building permits have been issued and where construction is occurring.”

The public can contact the County of Maui to make requests to reinstall or reenergize a streetlight in Lahaina at mauicounty.gov/2024/COM-Connect.

Decker said Hawaiian Electric is working through approximately 150 permanent service requests and 55 temporary service requests. She said customers who were not existing Maui customers before August 2023 are not anticipated to experience delays in connecting to service.

She said different permits are required for different serv­ice requests. Temporary-­service requests can be for temporary dwellings such as mobile homes being brought onto a parcel or temporary construction power for the parcel during rebuilding. A permanent-­service request is to establish permanent power to a parcel.

“Timelines to restore serv­ice to respective parcels in Lahaina will range depending on various factors, including the layout of the rebuilt structures, electrical infrastructure needed, permitting and easements,” she said. “We understand the urgent need for Lahaina residents to return to their homes and we are here to help.”

DelosReyes said he could accept the delays in restoring power to his home if they weren’t related to avoidable complications such as miscommunications, and if the protracted timeline was related to moving previously above-ground power lines underground.

“Part of the community wants power now; the other part of the community just wants it safe,” he said.

Lahaina fire survivor Shayne Kahahane said he is among those upset about the time it is taking to restore power to fire-affected households in Lahaina as well as the decision to cut corners by replacing above-ground power lines, which he said are triggering for many in the community. Kaha­hane’s older sister Donna Gomes, 71, was one of the Lahaina residents who died during the Aug. 8, 2023, fire.

“People are upset that they are not putting the utilities underground. Lahaina­luna was vulnerable, right? The (fallen) trees and telephone poles, that’s why we couldn’t get out — even on the highway. That was one of the main issues. So (why did they still go) back and put up wooden poles?” Kahahane said. “It’s something that they are not telling us, or they don’t care about. You know, it’s a lot to do with cost, but the cost of lives (to them) doesn’t mean (much).”

Decker said Hawaiian Electric is allocating funds from a Department of Energy Grid Resiliency Innovative Partnership grant to harden transmission and distribution infrastructure and undergrounding distribution lines that pose a risk to evacuation routes in high-wildfire-risk areas. Decker said hardening transmission and distribution infrastructure and undergrounding distribution lines also are part of the Wildfire Safety Strategy that Hawaiian Electric filed Jan. 10 with the Public Utilities Commission.

“We recognize the Lahai­na community’s feedback to convert to under- ground, which is why we are using recently awarded federal funding to start in strategic locations as part of our ongoing wildfire safety work,” she said. “We are also continuing discussions on why other hardening measures may be more technically feasible and more cost efficient for customers considering that some conversions will greatly vary on the costs involved for all customers and length of time it would take to convert to underground, including certain environmental terrain, cultural sensitivities, or coastal setback restrictions.”