HONOLULU (KHON2) -- For the second time in less than a week, businesses and residents in Chinatown are in the dark. According to HECO, power was restored to about 2,400 customers at 9:10 p.m. on Tuesday. The remaining 600 are expected to receive power as early as 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
Business owners, like Chuck Bussller, are fed up. "I'm dumbfounded that within a week I'm experiencing the same thing," Bussler said.
Bussler, the managing partner of Fete Restaurant in Chinatown, said the financial toll is huge on business owners as well as their employees, many of whom rely on tips to survive.
"It's definitely a waterfall of cascading events that will affect everybody down the line from us," he said.
He thinks HECO should have handled the situation better.
"We kept hearing different stories and that was part of the problem. We were stringing along our staff. We were not able to secure food properly because if we thought it was going this long, we would have had different moves to make," Bussler explained. "I think the clarity that could have been issued in advance could have saved a lot of heartache, a lot of hours and a lot of money for a lot of small business. "
Around the block at J. Dolan's, operations manager Kristen Allspaw said they are also trying to salvage whatever they can. They want to know why this keeps happening.
"It's been very frustrating," she said. "In general, we want answers."
According to HECO, a fire in a manhole Monday night caused extensive damage to underground circuits and high-voltage cables near King and Bethel Streets, which they are in the process of repairing. HECO said that much of the underground network was originally built in the 1960s and 1970s.
"Why are we not staying ahead of the game with a public utility?" Allspaw asked. "It's just as important as water. It's just as important as gas. Electricity, it's all part of the public utilities that help keep the community running."
During last week's outage, the Hawaii Theatre Center was able to keep the lights on thanks to its solar power. But that's not the case this time around and that could cause serious problems for the theater.
"It causes damage that's quite literally irreparable to facilities that are irreplaceable, one of a kind," Ron McDaniel, director of communications for the Hawaii Theatre Center, explained.
"What kind of damage is this? What really is the problem?" KHON2 asked.
"Water and humidity is the biggest issue here," McDaniel replied.
That is because it can cause mold, which could be catastrophic for the historic, 102-year-old theatre. The hope is that HECO and the insurance companies step up.
"I really hope HECO and all our insurance adjusters really take extra care of all the Chinatown businesses because the amount of loss is going to be pretty phenomenal for just this small footprint of an area," Bussler said.
HECO said at least 3,000 thousand customers in Chinatown are without power. The Honolulu Police Department said they plan to do additional patrols in the area, and officers are posted at several intersections to help direct traffic.