Aiea Intermediate School will be closed today because of a power failure, according to the state Department of Education.

The department did not release further information, but a Hawaiian Telcom spokeswoman said the power outage occurred when crews were repairing utility lines that a truck had pulled down Friday.

Ann Nishida Fry, Hawaiian Telcom spokeswoman, said the company hired a contractor to repair the electrical equipment and crews will return today to make repairs.

Kauai

Black band besets coral

A pernicious affliction has returned to plague coral around Kauai, researchers have concluded.

Black band disease, which first appeared off the North Shore in 2012, peaked in 2013 and dissipated in mid-2015, has shown up once again, the Garden Island reported.

Over the last two months, Hanalei researcher Terry Lilley surveyed the same 20 sites that he monitored in 2013 and 2014 with researchers from the University of Hawaii, U.S. Geological Survey and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The affected areas include the North Shore and Salt Pond Beach Park near Port Allen Airport.

“There are numerous cyanobacterial infections on the rice corals now at Anini, Tunnels, Waipa, Wainiha, Charros and Salt Pond,” Lilley said. “Some of the young new mound corals are also diseased.”

At Waipa, Lilley said he found hundreds of new young blue rice corals growing quickly at the start of 2017, but recently documented that most of their growth has stopped.

“What is interesting is that they are changing from their bight blue color to a brown color,” he said.

Tom Woods, with the nonprofit Reef Guardians Hawaii, said he saw the black band disease return to Anini in June or early July. He also saw some small patches at Kee Beach during the Kids Coral Camp in June.

Bernardo Vargas-Angel, a coral ecologist with NOAA, took a look at Lilley’s photos of the corals with black band disease and confirmed his suspicions.

“It seems there’s still some disease coming back,” Vargas-Angel said. “He’s diving and swimming over there. I have no doubt in his observations.”

Black band disease is caused by bacteria that can destroy a colony in a matter of months, though some corals do survive. The coral colonies that previously fought off the disease could have been more susceptible to the disease this time around, Vargas-Angel said.