Phone trouble to continue through tonight
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
This was the weekend that Karen Cerjan hoped to hear back from all those landlords she called looking for a house to rent in Hawai'i Kai.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
But Cerjan was one of 3,500 Verizon Hawaii telephone customers who lost service Thursday afternoon when a private contractor doing work on Hawai'i Kai Drive accidentally damaged an underground Verizon cable. Service was restored to about 2,000 homes by 4 p.m. yesterday, and Verizon hopes all lines will be hooked up late tonight.
Haha'ione Valley residents use a phone kiosk at the Oahu Club.
The contractor will be billed for "well over $100,000" in costs incurred by Verizon as a result of the damage, including rebates to customers and the repairs by more than 100 Verizon employees who worked through the weekend splicing in a new section of cable to replace the old one, company spokesman Brian Blevins said.
Some 500 customers had Verizon forward their incoming calls to their cellular telephones for free, and the company distributed free cellular telephones to customers known to have medical conditions that might require emergency response, and to managers of large apartment complexes.
Cerjan and hundreds of other customers came to a "porta-payphone," eight units on a trailer hauled to the Oahu Club parking lot for free local calls and pay long-distance calls, traditionally heavy on the Mother's Day weekend.
Cerjan had made three trips to the trailer by yesterday afternoon. "I have no idea how many calls I missed," she said.
So, if anyone has a 3BR/2BA for rent in Hawai'i Kai for $1,500 at the end of June, call her mother's business line downtown at 521-8995.
