Hawaiian Telcom customers around Oahu are reporting a number of outages to land-line services.

The heavy rain over the weekend caused water to seep into the company’s cables, causing some short circuits, said Telcom spokesman Scott Simon. The cables must be replaced but also must be given enough time to dry out.

"As a result, service may be impacted, varying from issues such as static on the line to being out of service," Simon said.

Simon was unable to provide the number of trouble tickets the company had received yesterday.

He was also unable to provide locations of the outages because many of them are isolated to blocks or a single building.

Readers reported phone outages yesterday in Makiki, Pearl City and Aiea.

Lenny Brooks, site manager at the Heights at Wailuna in Pearl City, said some residents have complained about phone outages since the weekend.

He said a 79-year-old woman only has her land-line connection and is unable to contact family on the mainland.

But some areas might not see restored service until 2011 rolls in.

"Because we are addressing numerous separate pockets of customer problems caused by the wet conditions, the queue of repair and restoration efforts will require additional time to address, in some cases, into the new year," Simon said.

Simon said crews are working every day in 10- to 12-hour shifts, and will be working through Christmas. Technicians from the neighbor islands have been flown in to assist with repair efforts.

"Hawaiian Telcom is sorry for any inconvenience being experienced by our customers, and thanks them for their patience," Simon said.