Hawaii Restores Power to Nearly All of Oahu and Maui After Hurricane Lala — But Big Island Waits Weeks
Crews beat their own restoration deadline on two islands, but roughly 10,000 customers on Hawaii Island — some in communities where homes were swept off their foundations — could stay dark for up to two weeks.
Hawaiian Electric said Saturday it has essentially restored power to every customer on Oahu and Maui knocked out by Hurricane Lala, two days ahead of the utility's own Friday-night target, even as crews on the hard-hit Big Island warn that full restoration in the most remote areas could stretch into next month.
The storm, which peaked as a Category 1 hurricane before weakening to a tropical storm as it skirted south of the Big Island on August 15-16, knocked out power to more than 180,000 customers at its peak. As of Saturday, Oahu sat at 99% restored with about 2,600 customers still out and Maui stood at 98% with roughly 570 still dark, according to Hawaiian Electric's latest field updates. Hawaii Island, which took the storm's most direct hit, still had close to 10,000 customers without service, concentrated in remote and severely damaged pockets of the Kaʻū District.
A death, swept-away homes and record rain
The storm has been linked to one death — a 90-year-old woman in Nāʻālehu who was reported missing and later found dead. Torrential rain, more than three and a half feet in the Big Island's mountains, triggered landslides and flash floods that wiped out roads and swept at least one home entirely off its foundation, while flooding destroyed two more homes in Nāʻālehu. Two elementary schools and a high school in the Kaʻū district remained closed as of this week while crews assessed structural damage, according to Big Island Now.
SOME POWER OUTAGES MAY LAST MONTHS IN THE HARDEST-HIT POCKETS
Hawaiian Electric credited mutual-aid line crews brought in from California utilities for helping it beat its own restoration timeline on Oahu and Maui, work that KHON2 reported came in roughly two days ahead of schedule. On the Big Island, though, officials have cautioned that some of the worst-hit, most remote customers could be without power for weeks rather than days, given the scale of downed transmission infrastructure and washed-out access roads.
Governor's emergency declarations remain active for the affected counties, and residents in the Kaʻū district have been urged to continue treating tap water as unsafe until further notice in areas where water systems were also damaged. State and county crews are continuing door-to-door damage assessments this weekend as the recovery moves from emergency response into the longer rebuilding phase.