KALAHEO – A water line break in Kalaheo left some residents without water early Wednesday morning, but water officials alleviated the problem a few hours after the break was reported. Officials with the Kauai Department of Water said a break
KALAHEO – A water line break in Kalaheo left some residents without water early Wednesday morning, but water officials alleviated the problem a few hours after the break was reported.
Officials with the Kauai Department of Water said a break in Kalaheo’s main water line occurred along Kaumualii Highway, between Kalaheo Missionary Church and the Hawaiian Kukui Brand factory. The breach closed a portion of the highway.
Kimberly Tamaoka, DOW public relations specialist, said the break is likely due to an aging water line.
She said police dispatch started receiving calls from Kalaheo residents about water outage around 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Standby personnel from the DOW investigated the outage and found a leak around 5 a.m.
“Between 6 and 7 a.m., we were able to close the valves to isolate the broken main line,” Tamaoka said. “After the line was isolated, water was restored to customers within minutes.”
The department is unsure how many of its 1,742 Kalaheo customers were affected by the outage. However, the DOW did receive calls from upper and lower Kalaheo.
While most of Kalaheo had its water restored on Wednesday morning, DOW officials said about six customers were without water in the area along Kaumualii Highway between Lauoho Road and Hokua Road.
As of 5:30 p.m. (Wednesday), the water outage to affected residents was extended to 9:30 p.m. The east-boud lane on Kaumualii Highway, between Lauoho Road and Hokua Road, was closed from 7 p.m. to midnight midnight for repair work.
A trailer-mounted water tank supplemented those residents near the intersection of Kaumualii Highway and Lauoho Road.
The waterline break affected two deep wells and three tanks in Kalaheo, which hold a total of 800,000 gallons of water.