Last Updated: Sept. 15, 1 p.m. ET
A week after Hurricane Lowell wreaked havoc on Kauai, Kauai Island Utility Cooperative has slashed its outages by 80% and is working with mutual aid crews to restore power to the island’s hard-hit north shore.
A 250-member restoration crew was deployed throughout the island Monday morning, with mutual aid from Hawaiian Electric Co., Southern California Edison and HMS Construction Inc., KIUC said. An estimated 100 mutual aid volunteers worked with about 150 co-op employees.
All of Kauai’s large conventional generation units at Port Allen and Kapaia are back to pre-storm operations and are adequate to keep the island powered for the foreseeable future, the co-op said. Two solar-plus-storage facilities are also working and can help meet demand, KIUC said.
The devastating Category 2 hurricane never made landfall on Kauai, but it still caused widespread destruction when it moved about 80 miles west of the island late on Labor Day, bringing wind gusts up to 85 mph, dangerous surf, rockslides and a deluge that closed roads and forced about 300 people to evacuate from homes along the coast. At least two people have died as a result of the hurricane, news reports say.
KIUC reported that 33,319 of its 36,333 members—or nearly 92%—had lost electricity by Sept. 8 as the hurricane blew down trees, power poles and lines before moving out to sea. As of Tuesday morning, Sept. 15, the co-op had reduced the number of outages to about 6,500 and was working to restore power to more members as quickly and safely as possible.
Much of that effort is focused on Kauai’s badly damaged north shore.
KIUC and HECO crews were working together to repair broken transmission poles in the area while the Hawaii Department of Transportation helped clear vegetation and debris.
The first restorations for north shore co-op members are expected to take place early this week, said David Bissell, KIUC’s president and CEO.
“We will know much more in the next couple of days as we gauge the progress of our crews,” Bissell said.
Co-op members expressed their gratitude to the line crews on the co-op’s Facebook page as lights began to come on again.
“Mahalo for power in Kekaha Gardens!” wrote Shari Kaauwai. “Just turned on 20 minutes ago and our street started cheering!! I thought we won a football game cause the cheers were so loud!”
“Thank you for all your hard work!” wrote Liana Koerte. “Got my power at 10 pm last night so I’m sure all your workers are working hard into the late hours to get everything back up!”
Keahi Kealoha thanked the crews for making it possible for him to turn on his air conditioner again.
“I was dying from this heat/humidity without the air conditioning! Now I can finally sleep comfortably again!”
John Culliney said his power came back on just in time.
“Thanks to all of the workers who got the power back on in Ulu Mahi,” he wrote. “We were down to our last gallon of diesel in the generator. Life is good.”
Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.