First responders alter operations in preparing for power shutoffs

HONOLULU — Police, firefighters, paramedics and emergency management officials on O‘ahu are modifying operations to prepare for the possibility that Hawaiian Electric must shut off power to reduce wildfire risks.

The Public Safety Power Shutoff plans are a last resort when a utility cuts power to electrical lines in the interest of public safety, Hawaiian Electric told government officials April 11 at a wildfire symposium in Hilo.

Hawaiian Electric is working with state and county agencies on every island to be capable of doing a PSPS by July 1 but has no plans to do them unless there is no other way to keep communities safe.

The electrical utility suffered scrutiny for not having a PSPS in place prior to Maui’s Aug. 8 wildfires, which killed 101 people. That fact was consistently cited in the hundreds of lawsuits arising from the fatal fires.

Utilities in California and other areas at risk of wildfires created PSPS plans for peak fire weather. Hawaiian Electric, using mainland consultants who helped create PSPS plans for other utilities, started structuring a plan after the Lahaina fire.

On O‘ahu the city Department of Emergency Management, Fire Department, Police Department, Emergency Services Department and most government agencies have plans to operate, communicate and respond should power be knocked out to the entire island, officials told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in an interview Friday.

Hawaiian Electric representatives are meeting every Friday at HFD’s headquarters with first responders, emergency management officials and city officials to work through plans for targeted power shutdowns prompted by wildfire weather.

HFD is responsible for mitigation and control of urban fires, while the state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife is responsible for forest reserves, with a co-response in intermediate areas, according to the city.

“Everything we do is to prepare for the worst, so that’s part of our nature. Even before the Maui fires we were doing disaster preparedness planning,” HFD Chief Sheldon K. Hao told the Star-Advertiser, noting the department’s numerous contingencies include being able to operate islandwide if the city’s encrypted Motorola P25 digital radio system fails.

“I think for all of us, how are we going to continue our communications (is important). All public safety, we’re working together. A lot of issues we are going to have to look at, but with our previous preparedness and working with our other department agencies, I think we can continue operations, together, safely and collaboratively.”

HPD’s dispatch and radio system has multiple layers of redundancy and is able to operate in extreme circumstances and conditions.

“We also have mobile (signal) repeaters and other forms of backup we can use if needed,” said Clifford Ramson, captain of the Major Events Division of the Honolulu Police Department.

Firefighters, police and paramedics are having all divisions and departments review emergency operation plans, contingencies for operating and other considerations that must be made to prepare for targeted power shutoffs.

“In our preparedness, we are doing the whole island. Something like this that is more targeted … will be a much smaller scale for us,” Hao said.

Fire stations on O‘ahu are prepared for anything, Hao said, with food, water, secured fuel supplies and emergency generators. The Department of Facilities Maintenance tests HFD’s generators weekly and performs testing and maintenance during preparations for potential disasters.

HPD’s generators in its substations are tested every month and can run for a week without being refueled. The locks on the cells holding detainees all have the ability to be secured in the event of power loss.

“Some of them might be electric in the newer stations, but there is still a manual mechanism in place so they can still be operated if power should go out,” said HPD’s Ramson.

EMS Acting Chief Spencer Yamamoto said in terms of backup generation for paramedics, they rely on HFD because ambulances are housed with them at fire stations, like the one in the high-fire-risk area of Waianae.

“Our Nanakuli station, that’s at a private facility. We basically shift our resources (in the event of power loss). … We do have small generators, but that’s just to keep things going for the short term,” Yamamoto said.

Oahu’s DEM emergency operations center has generators and backup power supplies to keep the hub and other facilities running during disaster management.

The conditions that would prompt a power shutdown include high winds, low humidity and dry-fuel conditions susceptible to large wildfires. Topography and proximity to communities are also considered when determining PSPS risk.

PSPS events may be triggered by a red (or yellow) flag warning that indicate high fire-risk conditions. Notifications will be made to public safety partners and Hawaiian Electric customers when a PSPS event is imminent and underway.

Hawaiian Electric has shared preliminary maps of areas of high risk where a PSPS might be used in dire situations and started sharing Geographic Information System layers so first responders can incorporate the information into their operational maps.

A Geographic Information System is a computer system that analyzes and displays geographically referenced information, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and uses data that is attached to a unique location, including spatial, attribute and metadata.

Updated PSPS maps from Hawaiian Electric are expected to be delivered to first responders, emergency management officials and other collaborators in the next 10 days.

Hawaiian Electric plans to incorporate feedback from all counties in the version of PSPS maps to be shared with the public at the end of the month.

“We’re still working on the maps because right now we’re doing work in high-risk, high-impact areas to try to reduce the size of the potential PSPS footprint,” Hawaiian Electric Vice President of Government and Community Relations Jim Kelly told the Star-Advertiser.

Some of the work Hawaiian Electric is doing includes replacing poles, ensuring the correct tension on lines, installing spacers so lines don’t touch and create sparks during high winds, and cutting trees and vegetation away from lines, Kelly said.

PSPS will be the highest- profile action Hawaiian Electric has taken to ensure public safety, but it’s only “one part of our wildfire safety strategy.”

“And there’s a lot we’re working on — in severe weather this would be our last resort. We know this is disruptive, and we’re going to work closely with critical customers like hospitals and telecommunications providers and water departments as well as emergency agencies to be ready if we have to do this,” Kelly said. “Once we finalize details on how this will work and what people need to know, we’re going to be over-communicating to everyone, not just those in the high-risk areas. People may not be happy, but they won’t be able to say they didn’t know about it.”

Leeward coast fire risk

The brush fire-prone, leeward-facing foothills of the Waianae range, a 20-mile stretch from Nanakuli to Makua Beach, are at top of mind for first responders when considering plans to operate amid a targeted power outage and wildfire conditions.

More than 35,000 people live in Nanakuli, Waianae and Makaha.

The coast is a “priority area” for action planning due to concerns about “recurring wildfires in the region, unmanaged vegetation, proximity of community areas and lives at risk, and unique and important native ecosystems in the mauka uplands, to name a few,” according to a 2018-2019 Vegetation Management Rapid Mapping Assessment and Collaborative Action Planning for O‘ahu, by the Hawai‘i Wildfire Management Organization. “Furthermore, it was a priority area for mapping contributors, as suggested by the numerous areas proposed for fuels management.”

The study mapped 12,000 acres and 50 miles of “needed firebreaks, fuel reduction or fuel conversion” on O‘ahu.

The Waianae Coast is an area of “high wildfire risk with high impact if there was a fire,” no matter the origin, said Hawaiian Electric’s Kelly.

“Our aim is to look at PSPS on the most critical circuits so there are pockets of lower-risk areas that could remain energized during an event, but depending on the severity of the weather, there’s no guarantee we can do that,” Kelly said. “As we make more grid investments, we will be able to do more circuit segmentation to reduce impacts.”

Hawaiian Electric expects about 10,000 customers would be affected by a PSPS event on the Waianae Coast.

The impact of PSPS on customers in other areas should be minimal, but if there are “high winds, it’s likely customers around the island would experience outages,” Kelly said.

After the Aug. 8 Maui wildfires killed 101 people in Lahaina and left 8,000 homeless, HFD changed its response model for any type of wildland fire, Hao said.

“Initially, we would usually only send one engine company to go and do their initial assessment, then call for additional resources. Since Lahaina … we’ve doubled that to two engines and a tanker. So our initial response is higher,” he said.

If power were shut off on the Waianae Coast, police and firefighters would staff the area with more personnel to be ready for any Lahaina-like incident when power and communication failures created chaos for those managing the disaster.

“For example, we might decide to send more staff, maybe two relief engines, and put additional personnel on our (water) tanker apparatus … that usually only has one person assigned to it. That’s what we would do for a surge in that particular area,” Hao said.

Conditions changed by the deteriorating climate are prompting HFD to ask for more money from the City Council for more tankers, manpower and resources to “enhance our capabilities from an equipment standpoint and response,” Hao said.

HPD’s Ramson said if it’s a fast-moving emergency, watch and division commanders have the authority to hold personnel (on shift) or bring in outside assistance (from other patrol districts) “almost immediately” if needed.

“If it’s something more long term, something planned, then we can get a little more creative. We can utilize nonpatrol personnel. We also have reserve officers. We might even ask DEM for volunteer personnel, and they can assist with traffic control and stuff like that, which is probably something we would do if it extends into anything more than 24 hours,” Ramson said.