Transportation Department informed of trashy lookout

Question: On Pali Highway, there’s a drive-off to a lookout where you can see the Honolulu Memorial Park pagoda. A lot of old building material and other stuff has been thrown over the side. Can you kindly inform whoever takes care of this area?

Answer: The state Department of Transportation has jurisdiction of that area.

Your complaint has been logged with maintenance crews, said DOT spokeswoman Caroline Sluyter.

In the future, call 831-6714 to report illegal dumping, road hazards, potholes, graffiti and other problems on state highways.

Sluyter said if you see illegal dumping taking place on state roads, to please get as much information as possible about the location, vehicle and license plate number, then to report it to police by calling 911.

Auwe

To Hawaiian Telcom. On March 26, a number of landline phones in Waipahu went dead. Those who lost service had to find out for themselves that their phones were out of service, as Hawaiian Telcom failed to get the word out to news organizations. Many seniors, some shut-ins, those on medical alert systems, and even the deaf or hard-of-hearing using CaptionCall were left in the dark. KHON-TV was notified, but Hawaiian Telcom only said that the phones could be out for about 10 days (later updated to April 2). Hawaiian Telcom, you might set up a system to identify customers dependent on continuous service. — Ben Johnson

Service was restored to about 180 affected customers on April 2, said Hawaiian Telcom spokeswoman Ann Nishida Fry.

Hawaiian Telcom’s automated system immediately updated the service center’s outgoing phone message, letting area customers know it was aware of a problem and investigating the cause, she said.

"Currently, our system automatically provides an extended scenario estimate of how long it could take to resolve an issue, even before the cause is identified. In this case, it provided an 11-day estimate that was later reduced to six days," with crews working "around the clock," she said.

The April 2 estimated repair date was updated on March 27, she said.

Asked to respond to your criticism, she said, "We are currently reviewing our process and may refrain from offering an (estimated time of repair) until the outage has been fully investigated. We are also looking at ways to improve customer notification."

In this case, it first took time to locate the source of the outage, she said, then crews had to deal with "a cable in a crowded, wet manhole that was difficult to access."

Extensive damage from rain required the cable to be completely replaced.

That process is "labor intensive and time-consuming, involving cutting out the damaged section, pulling a large new cable into the manhole and painstakingly fusing thousands of individual cable pairs," Nishida Fry said.

"This manhole was particularly challenging as it was flooded and full of cables from other companies, so our technicians had to carefully work around them."

Outage Options

For customers experiencing "service issues," Nishida Fry said Hawaiian Telcom offers free call-forwarding.

It has a limited number of cellphones to loan on a case-by-case basis. Customers can call 611 or 643-6111 to make a request.

"We understand that any disruption can be difficult for our customers and thank them for their patience and understanding," Nishida Fry said. "The majority of our plant and facilities are outdoors and thus, subject to elements such as inclement weather. When service issues are reported to us, we do our best to respond to them as quickly as possible in order to minimize inconvenience to our customers."

Mahalo

To the gentleman sitting next to me on a plane from Las Vegas to Honolulu for calling out that I had left my purse behind as I started walking out of the plane. You saved me from much worry as I had my driver’s license, credit card and medical cards in the purse. God bless you! — Grateful Senior

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