It’s been 9 days since Hurricane Lala raged by our island. We’re all still dealing with greater or lesser consequences of the storm. Loss of life was minimal (I’ve only heard of two fatalities so far) and while some roads and homes in the south of the island were completely destroyed, it seems rather remarkable that the damage wasn’t far worse.
The biggest problem for many has been impaired communication. Cell service was down on most of the island, Wireline phones are uncommon, but even they were down. Internet — and a lot of people rely on WiFi calling for their phone service — was pretty much down island-wide. Even 9-1-1 service was disrupted. Most of that has now been restored.
Grid power was out for most of the island as well. That was less noticeable than it might have been because there are a lot of folks who are off-grid or at least have solar+battery backup systems. Still, the majority of island residents were without power, and it was really only this morning that most of the (grid-connected) folks in our rural neighborhood got their power back. Without power, most communications devices won’t work. Without refrigeration, you cannot safely store most foods and even some life-saving medications (insulin being the most common). You might not be able to cook or even heat water. Without grid electricity, the county water department struggled to pump and transport water (backup systems were present, but I don’t think they anticipated an island-wide outage.) Got a generator for backup? Great, but gas stations need electricity to pump gasoline. A few days of power outage are inconvenient; over a week can be life changing.
The electric utility for the island was the Hilo Electric Light Company, or HELCO, until 1970 when it was acquired by the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) but retained its own identity as a subsidiary, the Hawai`i Electric Light Company (still, HELCO).
I’m not a fan of big investor-owned electric utilities. I grew up in California where I saw many abuses by Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) firsthand. I’ve never had to work with HELCO, but many locals assure me that “Hell Co.” is an appropriate moniker. HECO didn’t agree, and since the end of 2019 they have been trying to bring the HELCO subsidiary under the HECO brand.
Folks are upset about so many families having to live without electric power for nine-plus days. It seems like a lot. On the other hand, this was a hurricane. No hurricane has made landfall on the Hawai’i Island in recorded history (except possibly one in 1871). Lala didn’t either, but the eye passed about thirty miles offshore. That’s plenty close enough. The destruction was impressive, even if the human cost was far less than it might have been. HECO flew in line workers from other states and everyone seemed to be working hard in our neighborhood. Should the grid have been more hardened? Should a better disaster plan have been in place? I certainly have neither the information nor the expertise to address those questions, and I’m certain the retrospectoscope will identify problems with the infrastructure and disaster planning, but it may well have been reasonable. It doesn’t help, though, that HECO was implicated in the fires that destroyed Lahina and environs on Maui in August 2023. It also doesn’t help that, in 2010, they tried to get a statewide moratorium on the installation of new residential solar panels.
I don’t want to throw shade on the thousands of workers who are doing their best to restore power as fast as possible, but this extended outage will certainly prolong the tendency for locals to refer to the utility as “HELCO.”
—2p