Maui water pumps can work without HECO power

Jul 11, 2023

GEORGE F. LEE / [email protected]

Above, law enforcement officers surveyed the damage at the north end of Front Street on Thursday.

GEORGE F. LEE / [email protected]

At top, Hawaiian Electric linesmen continued to work along Honoapiilani Highway on Thursday restoring power to the area after last week’s wildfires in Lahaina.

Hawaiian Electric Co. executives, under widespread criticism and facing an onslaught of lawsuits, have maintained a key reason for not shutting off power early on Aug. 8 as wildfires began spreading on Maui was that electricity was needed to keep water pumps working for the firefighters battling the blazes.

But the Lahaina water system’s core components are backed up by diesel generators, and would not have stopped working if electricity had been shut down.

“The water source there is wells and treatments plants. They were in operation. When we lost power, we had generators that kept operating,” John Stufflebean, director of the Maui Department of Water Supply, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

The reason why firefighters eventually lost water pressure in Lahaina wasn’t due to the lack of electricity but rather because the water system was compromised from the massive inferno’s intense heat that left pipes exposed, said Stufflebean.

The county operates 11 water facilities in the Lahaina area, two treatment facilities and nine wells. The two treatment facilities and two of the wells are backed up by diesel generators.

“The loss of pressure was due to so many pipes down-stream rupturing,” he said.

The treatment plants and the two wells that had generators were enough to supply the water during the fire “except for the fact that it was leaking out of the system really fast.”

Under the intense scrutiny that has followed the deadliest U.S. wildfire in over a century, Hawaiian Electric executives have contended that keeping electricity flowing to the water pumps was a high priority.

Six days after the fire, Hawaiian Electric President and CEO Shelee Kimura explained at a Monday news conference why the utility did not shut off the power when the winds picked up.

“In Lahaina, the electricity powers the pumps that provide the water and so that was also a critical need during that time,” Kimura said.

Kimura also listed customers with medical needs and coordination with first responders as important factors to consider.

“There are choices that need to be made and all of those factors play into it. Every utility will look at (shutting down power) differently depending on their situation,” she said Monday.

Kimura and other executives have also noted that Hawaiian Electric, like most other U.S. utilities, does not have a formal power shutoff program.

After the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California killed 85 people in a disaster caused by fallen power lines, Pacific Gas &Electric agreed to pay more than $13.5 billion to fire victims, according to the Associated Press. State regulators adopted new procedures requiring utilities to turn off the electricity when forecasters predict high winds and dry conditions that might cause a fire to spread.

On Aug. 7 and 8, the National Weather Service in Honolulu had issued a red flag warning for Hawaii, meaning high winds, low humidity and dry conditions put the islands at increased risk for wildfires.

The forecast also included a high wind warning for the state. And, as the weather service predicted, Hurricane Dora passing far south of the islands helped intensify winds from the north, leading to powerful gusts up to 60 mph that stoked and propelled the flames across Lahaina town.

As of Thursday, Hawaiian Electric faces five lawsuits filed in state court related to the disaster. All the complaints allege that the company is responsible for fire-related losses based on contentions that its equipment, battered by powerful winds, sparked the Lahaina flames.

Total property losses from the fire initially have been estimated at $5.6 billion.

A Hawaiian Electric spokesperson told the Star- Advertiser in a statement Thursday that the utility does not have any additional comments beyond previous statements on its decision to not shut off power.

The county administration, Maui Fire Department and the Maui Police Department did not respond to questions about whether they discussed an electricity shutdown during the high winds.

MFD and MPD also did not respond to Star-Advertiser interview requests on Thursday.

Stufflebean, meanwhile, explained that water systems are designed to allow firefighters to tap into individual hydrants and draw off the water pressure in the pipe system to extinguish structure fires.

“An urban water system is designed for when there is a fire at an individual house on the system,” he said. “No urban water system is designed to be able to withstand wildfires.”

Nearly every municipal water system would buckle and lose pressure if faced with the combination of circumstances that hit Lahaina on Aug. 8, Stufflebean said.

Even if there had been water storage that allowed helicopters to load up and conduct water drops, the high winds would have prevented their launch.

“Every fire is going to be different,” said Stufflebean. “This fire was so catastrophic, it’s hard to imagine anything that could be done.”

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