“This is not how we take care of Ohana,” Sen. Fevella said of the outages

HONOLULU (KHON2) — State Senator Kurt Fevella held a press conference Monday to “speak for the silent majority” on behalf of Chinatown businesses and residents affected by back-to-back power outages.

Sen. Fevella, (R) Ewa Beach, Iroquois Point, Ewa Villages, called on Gov. Josh Green and Hawaiian Electric to provide answers and support to those affected by the outages.

Fevella asked HECO to provide details such as what happened, what is being done to prevent it from happening again and plans to help the community recoup its losses.

“I want HECO to have a public meeting or some sort of meeting in their area. Perhaps work with the Chinatown Lion’s Club, the Merchants Association, or even the neighborhood board of trustees. But they were able to give more than answers, because the lines were old,” Fevella explained.

Following Fevella’s press conference, Hawaiian Electric provided the following statement:

We sincerely apologize for the outages the Downtown and Chinatown community has experienced recently. Providing safe and reliable electricity to our communities is a responsibility that each of us at Hawaiian Electric takes very seriously and the recent outages are not acceptable to us. We are working diligently to determine the cause of the outages and to improve the reliability of service to the Downtown and Chinatown network in the future. We understand that the duration of these outages has been particularly difficult for residents and businesses and we will work with those directly affected. In the interests of fairness to our customers and the integrity of the claims process, we evaluate each claim on a case-by-case basis and in accordance with rules approved by the Public Utilities Commission. At the same time, we have already launched plans to work with the downtown and Chinatown community to see how we can best support them at this time.

Darren Pai, spokesperson for Hawaiian Electric

“Please be transparent, be responsible and consider Chinatown our family, our ohana.”