Question: On Saturday, Oct. 8, we were without power from before 10 a.m. until about 4 p.m. When we called the Hawaiian Electric hot line, there was no information on any outages. We were connected to a person on the mainland! She could not pronounce our street name (Poola Street in Waialae Iki), but more important, she could not tell us if there was an areawide outage. She told my son to check our breaker, then stated she had received several calls from our street. When we called back later, we still could not get any information. Why? Why is the emergency call center not local? I was recovering from surgery, so it was more than just an inconvenience, it involved medical care.
Answer: Exactly why you remained in the dark — that is, without information — is not certain.
But, based on the length of your outage, no one could tell you what was happening that day probably because it took a while for the field crew to locate and assess the problem, then they did not give system operators an explanation to give to the call center to pass on to customers, a HECO spokesman said.
“Hawaiian Electric regrets the disruption caused by the outage on Oct. 8, as well as concerns about the trouble calls,” said spokesman Peter Rosegg.
On that day, a trouble-shooter was sent out soon after the outage was reported and found problems on two separate lines, he said. An overhead line was repaired within two hours, restoring service to most of the customers affected.
“For work on an underground line, we had to bring in a larger crew and contractor for some excavation before we could do repairs and restore service to the remaining customers,” Rosegg said. That took about seven hours.
He said it appears that your home was served by the underground line, where the cause of the problem “was probably not known until the excavation could locate it and it could be assessed.”
He said the field crew might not have been ready with an explanation by the time you called the second time.
The first priority for workers in the field is safety, Rosegg said, then finding and repairing the problem.
“We constantly work with field crews to encourage them to report back to system ops as soon as they have solid information but not speculation,” he said. “Even when repairs have started, it is hard to say how long they will take until the repair is done, checked and the line returned to service.”
That said, Rosegg added, “This does not excuse the poor responses the customer appears to have gotten over the phone. We are constantly working to improve that.”
Outsourcing Trouble Calls
HECO has outsourced trouble calls on nights and weekends since February, Rosegg said.
“We have used a mainland answering service partly for cost and partly for the coverage and quality a larger call center can provide,” he said.
Operators at the mainland and regular call centers receive information on outages electronically as soon as available, he said.
“Operators are instructed, if there is any uncertainty, to ask for the spelling of street names,” Rosegg said. “No matter where calls are answered, we intend to provide the best service possible, so we appreciate feedback.”
Mahalo
To the HPD officer who pulled over the male driver of a maroon-colored car at 4:45 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25. The driver had made a left turn from Lumiaina Street onto Kamehameha Highway toward Waipio. Although he had a green light, there was a group of middle school-age boys crossing the street with the “walk” signal. Instead of yielding, the driver sped through the crosswalk right in front of the boys. Immediately the blue lights of the police car came on. I hope the traffic ticket teaches that driver to yield to pedestrians. It’s the law! An accident could have happened. — Denise
———
Write to “Kokua Line” at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
