(BIVN) – Hawaiian Electric says it continues to make steady progress restoring power across Hawaiʻi Island following the impacts pf Hurricane Lala.
Last night, the power company said it had reduced the number of customers without electricity by nearly one-half since Thursday morning.
“As of 6 p.m., approximately 600 customers remain without power, down from 1,430 earlier today,” Hawaiian Electric reported. “Restoration work continued islandwide, with crews addressing outages in areas such as Puna, North Kona, Kaʻū, Hāmākua and Honokaʻa.”
Following repairs to a key transmission, crews restored service to much of Pāhala Wednesday night, and Kaʻū Hospital on Thursday.
From Hawaiian Electric:
As repairs are completed, crews are conducting inspections and safety checks to verify that repaired and replaced equipment is safe, operational and ready to be returned to service. Remaining outages are increasingly concentrated in smaller pockets where damage is more complex and additional work may be required before equipment can be safely energized.
Over the next week, repair crews plan to work on restoring power to pocket outages in Nāʻālehu, Pāhala, and do underground work in Punaluʻu. Some areas in Kaʻū could still be without power into early September.
The utility notes debris must be cleared from some areas of Nāʻālehu, Punaluʻu and Wood Valley before distribution lines can be rebuilt.
