Posted on: Tuesday, September 17, 2002

Leaning utility poles jam traffic in Nanakuli

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

Three utility poles broke and leaned dangerously across Farrington Highway in Nanakuli yesterday, knocking out power to 5,000 customers and causing a massive traffic jam that lasted late into the night.

Hawaiian Electric Co. crews were expected to work through the night to replace the poles. HECO spokesman Fred Kobashikawa said the crews hoped to have the poles in place and the four-lane highway reopened before this morning's rush-hour.

But for many on the Leeward Coast, that won't be soon enough. Traffic was detoured at Princess Kahanu Avenue to Hakimo Road and back to Farrington Highway, and some residents reported taking up to four hours to get home from town.

At 10:00 last night, police said traffic was still backed up to the Hawaiian Waters Adventures Park in Kapolei.

Police noticed the poles and lines leaning across the highway near Hakimo Road at about 2:20 p.m. Kobashikawa said one of the poles broke and the weight of that fallen pole brought down two others.

Electricity to the area remained on until 3:05 p.m., when HECO shut off power as a precaution. At that time, customers from Nanakuli to Wai'anae Valley Road were without electricity.

By 6:30 p.m., only about 70 customers in the vicinity of the broken poles remained without electricity. One of them was Randy Iaea, who lives in the Garden Grove subdivision on Farrington Highway.

Iaea said one of the poles fell near a bus stop where school children board and leave buses. He said that if the incident had occurred a half-hour later, many children would have been in the area.

"We're lucky nobody got hurt," he said.

Iaea added that yesterday's traffic woe "reaffirms the need for a secondary road" on the Leeward Coast. In the past, police have shut down Farrington Highway to investigate traffic accidents, forcing residents to detour through narrow residential streets.

While HECO was investigating what caused the poles to snap, Iaea said those in his community noticed eight months ago that one of the poles was leaning toward the highway. He said HECO was notified and the pole was marked for future maintenance.

"Unfortunately they didn't get to it in time," Iaea said. "And it wasn't no wind or anything that blew it over."

Iaea said he hoped that power would be restored before too long.

"I got a lot of opihi in my freezer and I don't want that to thaw out," he said.