Updated at 12:14 a.m., Monday, October 16, 2006
202,000 residents have power restored
Advertiser Staff
Hawaiian Electric Co. had restored electrical power to 202,000 of its 291,000 customers on O'ahu by 11:30 p.m., said a company spokeswoman.Much of Windward O'ahu and most of East Honolulu, however, have been without power for over 15 hours due to this morning's earthquakes on the Big Island.
HECO said power was on in parts of Kapahulu, most of Waikiki, Ward Avenue, Kalihi, Makaha, Wai'anae, Nanakuli, Campbell Industrial Park, parts of Kapolei and Makakilo, 'Ewa but not 'Ewa Beach, parts of Waipahu around the Village Park area, most of Mililani and all of Wahiawa, Pearl City and 'Aiea, the Honolulu Airport area, Hickam and Pearl Harbor, Sand Island, most of Iwilei and parts of Kaka'ako and Kahala, and parts of Kaneohe.
HECO hoped to restore power to all 291,000 households by early Monday.
All of Maui Electric Co. customers had their power restored by this afternoon. About 99 percent of Big Island customers had their power back as of early this evening.
HECO spokeswoman Lynne Unemori said the Pearl City residents are connected to a circuit connected to the Waiau plant and that the customers began to receive power when HECO began restarting the power plant.
Uemori said that HECO will incrementally restore power on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis to avoid overloading the system.
"We don't want to get into a situation where we put too much load on line ... and create an imbalance," she said.
Unemori said the power failure occurred when earthquakes knocked generators at HECO's downtown and Kahe power plants off line. The imbalance caused by the downed generators prompted HECO's computer system to shut down the company's power system to avoid permanent damage to the power system and cause a more prolonged power failure.
