On their final day in Kauaʻi, 40 Southern California Edison team members are packing gear and preparing equipment for the flight home, leaving behind repaired power lines, reopened access routes and new relationships forged through weeks of storm recovery.
“Our lineworkers and support personnel adapted, overcame, made do with what they had and showed up ready for the work,” said Alex Yanez, SCE’s deputy mutual assistance manager for the Kauaʻi storm response. “That resiliency carried us through each day on Kauaʻi, and it will stick with the team on the way back home.”
Deep in Kauaʻi’s heavily wooded terrain, SCE lineworkers made repairs under conditions far different from those they typically encounter at home.
The trip home closes three weeks of work on Kauaʻi and nearly two months of back-to-back mutual assistance in Hawaii. As an SCE team wrapped up three weeks of assisting Hawaiian Electric with repairs following Hurricane Lala on the Big Island, Hurricane Lowell struck Kauaʻi, leaving thousands without power and triggering another call for help.
To give the team that worked on the Big Island a chance to reunite with their families, a new SCE crew stepped in to join Hawaiian Electric in assisting Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC).
“An advance team moved from the Big Island to Kauaʻi ahead of us to help plan and connect us with key people at the utility. They passed on lessons learned from their experience to get us ready for what we might expect to see,” said Melissa Magana, SCE’s mutual assistance coordinator for the Kauaʻi response.
SCE trucks from the first response were also transferred between islands. Still, the Kauaʻi team had fewer vehicles and resources than crews typically have at home.
“We worked on steep hillsides covered in a clay-like soil that turns slippery in the rain — and it rained a lot,” said Yanez. “The sheer number of trees crews worked around was also challenging, since it’s not something they are used to.”
Working alongside local utility teams, SCE crews stabilized broken or leaning structures damaged by Hurricane Lowell.
One of the team’s assignments took them high into Waimea Canyon, where they worked at elevations of around 4,500 feet. Equipment operators built and improved access routes so lineworkers could reach damaged structures. Across other parts of the island, crews restored existing equipment and added poles and wire in some locations to strengthen the electric system.
Together, SCE, Hawaiian Electric and KIUC crews restored power to tens of thousands of people.
- Installed more than 20 poles and 30,000 feet of conductor
- Raised or adjusted more than 85 spans of wire
- Repaired more than 20 leaning poles
- Replaced corroded insulators on more than 20 transmission structures
- Patrolled 100-plus miles of power lines with drones
- Installed, reframed or straightened 106 poles
- Replaced or installed 94 crossarms
- Removed 4,500 feet of conductor and restored over 130 spans of conductor
- Patrolled and worked over 20 miles of power lines
“SCE’s skilled crews worked shoulder-to-shoulder with our KIUC team under incredibly difficult conditions, helping us restore power safely and far more quickly than we could have on our own,” said KIUC president and CEO David Bissell. “We will never forget their commitment to our community, and they will always be part of our KIUC ‘ohana.”
SCE crews coordinated restoration work with Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative’s Chief of Operations Brad Rockwell (third from left) during the mutual assistance response on Kauaʻi.
The collaboration brought back power to nearly 33,000 residents, farms and local businesses, including an adventure tour operator, as well as communications equipment, military and scientific facilities, lodging and tourism-related operations.
“Everywhere we went, we received thank-yous from passing motorcyclists revving their engines, drivers honking and waving and people stopping to speak with us,” Magana said. “It feels good knowing we made a difference and helped communities recover.”
For more information, visit sce.com/safety.
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