‘Ridiculous’: Hilo residents demand answers after days-long outage from Lala

HILO (HawaiiNewsNow) – A days-long power outage at a Hilo apartment complex as a result of Hurricane Lala is revealing equipment troubles at the property.

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Monday marked the ninth day without electricity at Waiakea Villas, with residents saying the blackout has been particularly hard on kūpuna living there.

“I’m a disabled veteran, honorary discharge. I have a hard time walking. It’s pitch black at night,” resident Shannon Stannard said. “People in wheelchairs who can hardly walk, I am one of them.”

Frustrated by what he called unclear updates from management on restoration efforts, resident Gregory Gonzales said, “There’s a lot of elderly people here with medical problems and medical machines that need to be plugged in or medicines that need to be cooled down, refrigerated.”

Some residents have been stepping up to help those in need.

“People have lost all their insulin. Some people that we knew in advance, we were able to like secure them an ice chests and some ice,” resident Wendy Workman explained.

To help, management set up a makeshift phone-charging station featuring a white pop-up tent, a foldable table, and a generator.

“Look at that little tiny generator there. What the hell’s that gonna do?” Stannard jabbed, adding she lost “$300-$400 worth of food” in her unpowered refrigerator.

The outage has overwhelmed residents among the Villas’ roughly 200 units.

“I’m done with it and I’m telling you right now, this is ridiculous,” Stannard said.

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Gonzales added, “The email going around and here is saying that everybody’s just pushing the blame on HELCO, or they are pushing the blame on here, so that’s the problem. We just don’t know what’s going on.”

Property manager Ruston Swain responded to the complaints, telling Hawaii News Now, “So that’s the difficult part. Of course we’d love to give them a timeline. But we’re totally unsure of the timeline. I don’t want to make any promises that can’t be kept.”

Swain said he and other personnel are doing everything possible to keep residents informed, including starting a new hotline.

“So hopefully it’ll be more efficient, more faster, they can get the updates a little more timely,” Swain said.

Hawaiian Electric told HNN the issue lies with the property’s electrical equipment, though Swain said the utility helped secure needed parts more quickly than they otherwise could have.

“They’ve been really good. Really helpful. There’s a lot of pieces, a lot of variables that are out of people’s hands. They’re working really good together with our resident engineers,” Swain said.

HECO’s full statement to HNN reads:

“The issue lies with the customer’s electrical equipment. We have been working with the customer and their electrician since last week on restoring the power. We can’t speak for our customer. We can say we have been in close contact with their electrician and are working with them to restore power as soon as possible.”

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