Service failures have firm vow more security in area

Hawaiian Telcom plans to work with police and state authorities to beef up security in an area frequented by the homeless where telecommunications cables have been damaged twice in the past 10 days, company officials said Thursday.

In the latest incident, police arrested a 42-year-old homeless man at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday in connection with the vandalism of fiber-optic communications cables under the viaduct where the westbound lanes of Nimitz Highway meet the H-1 freeway near Kili­hau Street.

About 500 Hawaiian Telcom telephone and Internet customers lost service that wasn’t fully restored until 8:45 a.m Thursday. Crews had to splice individual strands of fiber-optic cable to repair the break. Data traffic also was rerouted.

Although the suspect was arrested on suspicion of copper theft, the fiber-optic cables used by Hawaiian Telcom do not contain copper.

The disruption was not as severe as one in the same area on Jan. 15 in which a fire apparently set by someone from a homeless encampment burned cables owned by Hawaiian Telcom and Oceanic Time Warner, cutting off service to 25,000 homes and businesses.

"To prevent future acts of vandalism, Hawaiian Telcom plans to increase security in the area," Hawaiian Telcom said Thursday in a prepared statement. "The company is also planning to meet with key stakeholders, including law enforcement officials, other communication providers with facilities in the same area, and the landowner, to address long-term facility route measures and the homeless community that has overrun the area under the airport viaduct," according to the statement.

The state Department of Transportation maintains a base yard under the freeway near where the cables were damaged.

"DOT is looking foward to working with stakeholders to better secure the area," said Caroline Sluyter, a department spokes­woman.

She said the area is scheduled for a semiannual "cleanup" at the end of February in which the DOT will work with social service agencies and the Department of Public Safety to remove the homeless and their belongings.

The department notifies the homeless about a week or two in advance to give them time to relocate. The effort is done in conjunction with homeless shelters and the state’s homeless coordinator, she said.

In addition to complaints from the public, concerns about illegal activity and sanitation problems, DOT officials need to be able to conduct inspections under the airport viaduct as they do for all bridges and elevated freeways, Sluyter said.

It normally takes about 40 to 50 DOT workers about a week to clean the area under the airport viaduct at a cost of anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000, she said.