As heavy rain and wind from Tropical Storm Moke threatened to bench the Southern California Edison crews helping Hawaiian Electric restore power to the Big Island, Christopher Mancilla and the other linemen geared up anyway.

“Mutual assistance means you can count on us,” said Mancilla, an upgrade foreman out of SCE’s Montebello District. “We are going to work until the weather stops us from being able to do it safely.”

This is Mancilla's second time responding to a call for mutual assistance. The first was to help restore power in Florida after Hurricane Milton left more than 3 million customers without electricity.

In Hawaii, he is overseeing a five-man distribution crew repairing storm-damaged equipment on the southwest portion of the island.

“Hurricane Lala caused a lot of devastation, from what I can see — there are a ton of downed power lines, downed wire and broken cross arms from the wind,” he said. “We went up to the other side of the island, and it was a lot of the same, so a lot of these communities have been without power for a while now.”

In the first couple days of SCE’s mutual assistance mission, his team and another crew from the Santa Monica area scoped out the work on the northern side of the island, but by day three, with the possibility of more heavy rain on the way, the crews decided to stick together — all 45 lineworkers reported to the laydown yard in Hilo to receive their work orders.

While dark clouds and light rain showers were constant throughout the day, the conditions never hit a critical level.

After an in-depth description of the work and a safety briefing, the guys headed to a highway about 20 minutes away.

“A large eucalyptus tree fell during the last storm and knocked down this line,” said Mancilla. “It caused some broken poles and cross arms, and downed wire. We are going to restring the wire, set some new poles and fix those arms.”

The damaged equipment is on a main line, which serves a chunk of the community in the area. Their goal for the day is to be able to turn on the power for as many of those people as possible.

All seven crews lined up along the highway, taking positions at different poles, then started climbing.

Collectively, crews reframed 15 poles, installed two spans of wire on two separate circuits, replaced six line arms, replaced two sets of double dead-end crossarms and added the proper slack to seven spans of power line.

“Hawaiian Electric doesn't have the amount of manpower that we do in California, so while they can make these repairs themselves, having us help out can make things go a lot quicker for their customers,” said Mancilla. “Everyone has been appreciative. Every other car that drives by is thanking us. It feels good to be able to do this for them.”

For more information, visit sce.com/safety.

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