Reported fire leaves hundreds without power in Waikiki

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Many people were enjoying Waikiki Monday evening when all of a sudden the lights went out, leaving portions of the iconic tourist destination completely in the dark.

“The Royal Hawaiian Center, all the stores were dark. A lot of the staff were kind of congregating and talking about how to manage things,” stated Eric, a Waikiki Visitor.

According to Hawaiian Electric, the outage impacted areas near Kalakua and Kuhio Avenues down towards Lewers Street. At its peak, 800 customers were left without power.

“We do know that there were reports of a fire in a manhole in the area and an underground cable fault,” said Darren Pai, HECO Spokesperson.

Hundreds of customers were left in the dark since approximately 7 p.m. on Monday.

“A lot of customers, they were like, ‘No, we don’t have time to wait until the light is on,’ and then they just went home. So, we had to refund them,” stated Kokone Myamano, a worker at Shingen in Stix Asia.

Others who work inside the food hall said most food prepared for the morning had to be thrown out.

“We also serve a lot of VIPs that unfortunately we can’t cater to today, so everyone’s morale is low,” said Nicholas Cabuco, Shingen employee.

Upgrades to the electrical grid for more reliable power are ongoing, per HECO. An investigation into the cause of the outage continues while businesses wait for power to be restored.

“Waikiki is one of the parts of the island where all of the cables are underground. So, we do have a maintenance schedule that is specific to Waikiki, just as we do in other parts of the island,” said Pai.