Storm leaves Downtown Honolulu without power overnight

Hundreds of businesses, government buildings, residences affected; Crews work to repair flooded substation

Release Date: 12/6/2021

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HONOLULU, Dec. 6, 2021 – Hawaiian Electric crews are working overnight to restore electric service to hundreds of customers in downtown Honolulu and Chinatown, but because of the continued heavy rains power will not be restored until tomorrow morning at the earliest.

The affected area is bounded roughly by South Beretania Street, River Street, Ala Moana Boulevard and Punchbowl Street. It includes the state capitol, federal courthouse, state office buildings, office towers on Bishop and Alakea streets and residential condominiums and apartments.

The outage was caused by flooding of the Iwilei substation, which serves downtown. Hawaiian Electric crews are working to pump out the substation before assessing the damage and attempting to repair the equipment. The heavy rains and flooding caused three transformers to fail over the past several hours, with the last transformer failing at about 9:30 p.m.

“We understand the inconvenience that this causes for our customers and we are committed to restoring power as safely and as quickly as possible,” said Jim Alberts, senior vice president of operations. “Our employees are dedicated to this effort, and we have crews on location, ready to take action as soon as the rains let up.”

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