Posted on: Tuesday, August 5, 2003

Two outages in Makiki affect HPD, some 911 calls

Advertiser Staff

Two outages yesterday left thousands of Hawaiian Electric Co. customers in the Makiki area without electrical power.

The first outage occurred at 12:04 p.m. and affected 6,600 customers, including the Honolulu Police Department's headquarters on South Beretania Street. HECO spokesman Jose Dizon said the outage stretched from the Police Department to Makiki Street and lasted about 25 minutes.

Capt. Scott Foster of HPD's Communications Division said the outage disrupted requests for police service calls filed through 911 for 11 minutes. The disruption involved transfers of calls from 911 operators to police dispatchers.

"We're working with Verizon to see what happened," Foster said. "It did not affect 911 transfers to fire and ambulance dispatchers."

The outage briefly knocked out telephone service at the HPD building until two generators restored backup power, Foster said.

At 6:02 p.m., another outage affected 3,800 customers in the same area, Dizon said. Power was restored to all customers by 6:43 p.m., he said.

The cause of both outages was under investigation last night.