Fatality Update: ‘Corroded’ Insulator Faulted in Power Line Fall; HECO Starts its Inspections

Hawaiian Electric says a “corroded metal internal component within the ceramic insulator” contributed to the insulator’s failure, which caused the line to fall and ignite a fire that killed a Wahiawa man in his parked van three days ago.

Mid-Morning Update: A HECO representative told CHORE this morning that the company began inspecting the Wahiawa grid the day after the 7,200-volt line fell, noting that an insulator failure is extremely rare.

Despite the rarity, CHORE believes a system-wide inspection – even if it only involves spot examination of insulators around the island – would give customers some comfort that the Wahiawa tragedy was more likely a fluke accident and not evidence of a wider problem. The public needs reassurance that the high-powered electric grid above our heads isn’t corroding into disrepair.

Whether the news media will give this story its due is problematic; the Star-Bulletin buried HECO’s statement in its Newswatch column today, and the Advertiser ignored it.

Closer to Home

HECO also told CHORE this morning that the power circuits serving the Waialae-Nui Ridge and Ainakoa neighborhoods, which have been plagued by blackouts recently, are being examined by engineers to see what short- and/or long-term actions might be implemented to improve reliability.

That’s good news to those who’ve come to anticipate an outage nearly each time it rains -- five of them in November, but not last night!