Phone problems persist statewide
| • | High winds knock out power |
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
More than 800 customers who lost telephone service during Hawai'i's first winter storm last week were still waiting for a dial tone yesterday.
Verizon Hawaii said it had crews working 12- to 15-hour shifts, sometimes around the clock, to restore service, but could not say when all lines would be repaired.
O'ahu had 167 customers without service in Windward areas, another 200 in East O'ahu, and 379 in the "O'ahu west" area covering the rest of the island.
Sixty-five customers were without service on the Big Island; 38 in the Lahaina and Ha'iku areas of Maui; and 34 on Kaua'i, mainly in the Kapa'a area, the company said.
Ann Nishida, Verizon spokeswoman, said the large number of scattered, single outages statewide slowed repair efforts.
Crews worked first on the largest problems, such as the 1,800 customers who lost service in Hawai'i Kai the day of the storm, then turned to the smaller clusters and individual cases.
She did not have precise figures of customers returned to service since the storm, but said "the number of those without service has been decreasing steadily."
The storm created enormous problems with telephone service, prompting 7,000 trouble calls on the first day. Some of those were for less serious problems, such as static on the line, she said.
Problems ranged from lines broken by tree limbs to soaked circuits in underground vaults that flooded during heavy rain, Nishida said.
"The manholes kept overflowing and flooding our vaults. When that happens, they have to physically dry the cables.
"At first we were quoting 24 hours, or two days, to restore some services, but that was before we knew how tremendous the volume was," she said. "This was an unusual situation in that there was a lot of damage that was so widespread.
"I have been told that storms in the past have tended to hit one area badly, but in this case all of O'ahu got pummeled."
Kahala customer Joann Plechaty said the delays were frustrating.
"I have been calling every day and they told me on Wednesday that by Friday at 7:30 p.m. it should have been fixed," she said. "They (Verizon) should give us a cellular telephone. I have a son in college and he usually calls me and I haven't heard from him."
She said she had been using the cellular telephone of another son in the meantime.
Plechaty said it was also frustrating to call the 611 repair line locally and find the telephone answered by someone in Wisconsin.
Nishida said when repair calls reach a certain volume, they are automatically switched to other service centers, such as one in Wisconsin, "so that customers can actually talk to a human being as soon as possible."
Nishida said the company will transfer calls from a customer's number to a cellular telephone if the customer has one, without charging the normal fee for that service.
She said the company distributes cellular telephones to people who have lost service and have advised the telephone company that they must have service for required medical care.
Requests for additional cellular telephones would be handled on a case-by-case basis, Nishida said, "but we don't have cellular phones for everybody."
Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.
