Jim RizzutoOriginal reports from Sunday, June 17:
Hawaii County Police say a power pole is down at the main Waimea intersection, Highway 190 and Lindsey Road. They say the road may be closed for up to 12 hours (until 5 a.m. and motorists should use the Waimea Bypass, Aia Ohia Street, as an alternate.
No additional details are available as of 5 p.m. Sunday, but there have been power outages throughout town. Fishing writer Jim Rizzuto, who provided the photo, said there are wires and police cars everywhere but it wasn’t clear why the pole went down.
Hawaiian Electric Light Company issued a statement just after 6 p.m. saying that 5,888 customers between Waimea and Kawaihae had power outages started at 4:20 p.m. due to the downed pole. They were able to fairly quickly restore power to 2,163 customers, at 5:17 p.m., and said they were working to restore power to the remaining customers as quickly as possible.
At 9 p.m. Hawaii County Police said they expect the road to be closed for 8 more hours, until 5 a.m. Monday.
