HONOLULU — Hawaiian Electric provided an update Thursday evening, which said crews had completed repairs and restored power to the downtown Honolulu area. Power to downtown circuits began coming on at about 7:20 p.m., about nine hours after the outage began. 

“We know this was an extremely challenging day for our customers in the downtown area and Chinatown, especially businesses and government offices. We thank them for their patience and offer our sincere apologies for the disruption,” said Darren Pai, Hawaiian Electric spokesperson.

On Thursday, Hawaiian Electric reported a power outage in Honolulu. The utility company stated its crews were working to repair cables in underground vaults below the streets and on damaged equipment at the Iwilei substation. HECO expected power to be restored by 6 p.m. Thursday.

HECO said that customers in downtown Honolulu lost power shortly after 10 a.m. following a sequence of events that began Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. “An outage affected the area between Bishop and Mililani streets downtown. That outage damaged an underground cable that feeds power into the downtown area,” the utility stated in a news release.

It said that the Iwilei substation experienced an overload of power shortly after 10 a.m. Thursday, causing a broader outage. According to HECO, the outage area encompassed Chinatown to the Capitol District “and includes office buildings, condominiums and key government buildings, including the State Capitol, the Federal Building and Post Office and state court buildings. The outage affects about 900 customer accounts, but many of those are master-metered office buildings and condominiums that have hundreds of tenants. Traffic signals downtown are also affected.”

The Honolulu Department of Transportation sent out a traffic advisory on Thursday about downtown traffic signals that weren’t functioning because of the power outage. It reminded motorists and pedestrians to treat all out-of-service signals as all-way stops.

“As of 11 a.m. Thursday, most traffic signals in the Downtown-Chinatown district (between River St. and Alakea St., and between Nimitz Highway and Beretania St.) are out of service. Uniformed Honolulu Police Department (HPD) officers will be at major intersections to help direct traffic. Drivers should obey all the rules of the roadway, and to drive with patience and aloha.”

Hawaii Emergency Management Agency also posted to X that several state buildings located in downtown Honolulu were without power, including the Hawaii State Capitol, Judiciary and the State Office Tower. State offices located in those buildings were closed to the public.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with the latest information from Hawaiian Electric spokesperson, Darren Pai. (June 14, 2024)