Updated at 2:38 a.m., Monday, October 16, 2006
Power restored islandwide
Advertiser Staff
Electrical power was restored islandwide at 1:55 a.m. today, a Hawaiian Electric Co. spokeswoman said.
Spokeswoman Sharon Higa said all 291,000 customers on O'ahu should have power after an hours-long outage, spurred by yesterday's earthquakes on the Big Island.
O'ahu residents who are still without power are asked to call the HECO trouble line at 548-7961.
Meanwhile, all of Maui Electric Co. customers had their power restored by yesterday afternoon, and about 99 percent of Big Island customers had their electricity back last night.
HECO spokeswoman Lynne Unemori said the electricity on O'ahu was restored neighborhood-by-neighborhood yesterday and early today 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.
The power failure occurred when earthquakes knocked generators at HECO's downtown and Kahe power plants off line, Unemori said. 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.
