If Rose Lani wasn't so out of breath, she'd probably scream. Six power outages since late Sunday night have angered the 79-year-old heart patient because every sudden blackout silenced the oxygen machine in her Waimanalo home.

Lani wasn't alone in the dark. From Sea Life Park to Waimanalo Elementary & Intermediate School, the same 1,500 Waimanalo homes and businesses were left without power each time.

Hawaiian Electric Co. found three separate problems with lines in the area but isn't ready to call the matter over.

"It is a nuisance," said Lani yesterday, thankful that she has portable oxygen tanks. "For three days, and it is upsetting. We hear nothing. We know nothing about when it is going to happen, and it's just gone off any old time."

HECO heard from many customers Monday and yesterday.

"We know it is very irritating to have that happening," said HECO spokesman Jose Dizon. "We're getting a lot of phone calls."

HECO workers found no obvious cause when they inspected power lines after the first outage, which started at 11:36 p.m. Sunday and lasted until 12:54 a.m. Monday, Dizon said. A second outage Monday, from 11:06 a.m. to noon brought more inspectors to the area, but they couldn't find anything either, he said.

After the third outage Monday, from 1:53 to 2:34 p.m., inspectors found a Mylar balloon caught in lines near Moole Street and a metal socket tied to fishing line that had been tossed up and around a power line near the polo fields, Dizon said.

But three more outages occurred yesterday — at 2:47 a.m., 6:55 a.m. and 9:03 a.m. — and workers flooded the area.

"We had a whole army of people out there," Dizon said. "One customer said it looked like our whole fleet of trucks."

About 10 a.m., a technician near the Waimanalo McDonald's rode a HECO truck lift bucket up above Kalaniana'ole Highway and discovered that a sagging high-voltage line had touched a similar line below, shorting out the system, he said.

"You couldn't see it from the ground," Dizon said. "So we tightened that upper line to remove the slack. We haven't had any outages since. But we are still out there to see if there is anything else. We aren't saying we found the problem. We are still looking."

Maureen Trevenen, an executive assistant at the Waimanalo Health Center, got to work yesterday at 7:40 a.m. and found her office dark and powerless, her computers useless.

"I was working in the dark," she said. "Our windows are sealed shut, so we left the door open to let the light in. It was getting warm."

Clinic workers were concerned about refrigerated medication, and when power kept disappearing Monday, they bought 11 bags of ice to cool things down, Trevenen said.

At Waimanalo Elementary & Intermediate School, students and teachers forged ahead even without power, said vice principal Noel Richardson.

Instead of ringing bells, the staff used an air horn to signal the start of school, he said.

"We are able to operate without electrical power," he said. "It kind of slows us down, but it doesn't shut us down."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.