01-13-2016, 12:51 PM
Final update: The power was out for ~8 hours before the outage was phoned into Hellco. Once they were notified they came out very quickly (quite impressed actually) and fixed the problem. Unfortunately it also meant that the power was out for ~8 hours where no efforts were made to restore service because they weren't aware of the outage. So much for "smart" meters or whatever technology they are claiming was installed to upgrade our grid from the 19th century.
The other lesson I learned today was to write the helco outage reporting number on your electrical panel. So when the power is out you're not trying to find out which of the three outage reporting numbers is applicable to our island on a tiny telephone screen. My first call, I wasn't sure if I had dialed the right number or not so my first question was "This is the number for the Big Island, right?" and the response was "Yes, this is for the main island." I wasn't sure what to make of that response but since they were able to pull up my address (eventually) I figured the professionals knew what they were doing. At the very end of the call (~8 minutes or so) she apologized and told me I'd have to call 808-969-6999.
Go write it on your panel door now.
The other lesson I learned today was to write the helco outage reporting number on your electrical panel. So when the power is out you're not trying to find out which of the three outage reporting numbers is applicable to our island on a tiny telephone screen. My first call, I wasn't sure if I had dialed the right number or not so my first question was "This is the number for the Big Island, right?" and the response was "Yes, this is for the main island." I wasn't sure what to make of that response but since they were able to pull up my address (eventually) I figured the professionals knew what they were doing. At the very end of the call (~8 minutes or so) she apologized and told me I'd have to call 808-969-6999.
Go write it on your panel door now.