From state officials to private companies, the response to the Maui wildfires has been nothing short of shambolic. No one can do their jobs; everyone has exhibited inordinate amounts of heinous bedside manners. Has anyone here taken a communications course because the Maui disaster chief resigned hours after he basically said he didn’t trigger the alarm system because it wouldn’t have saved the people who were burned alive.? The mayor of Maui is a walking nightmare, incapable of giving the media accurate reports of who is missing.
Gov. Josh Green, whose office just saw the deadliest wildfire in over a century occur under their watch, lectured about how social media is the root of all evil after his administration got dragged for their incompetence. One of the state’s water commission officials was more concerned about equity as the fires burned Maui to ash. Joe Biden’s sense of prioritization is abysmal. Hawaii’s elected officials might be worse.
Now, Hawaiian Electric admitted that they didn’t have the protocols to mitigate the wildfires. The island was subjected to strong winds from a hurricane off its shores, which likely damaged power lines, causing the fire. California has procedures to cut off power to areas that could spark a blaze. Facing mounting lawsuits for negligence, this revelation won't help them in court. And if you won’t offer a comment, stick to the script. There is one difference between California and Hawaii regarding negligence, which could save Hawaiian Electric, though they don’t deserve it (via NYT):
It could take months for officials to identify what caused the fire in Maui last week. But some plaintiffs’ lawyers and investors have already begun to blame Hawaiian Electric, the state’s largest utility.
The utility’s power lines and equipment are one potential source of the fire that has claimed the lives of more than 100 people — a death toll that is expected to rise once the more than 1,000 missing people are accounted for.
Lawyers have filed at least four lawsuits against the company. The suits contend that the company was negligent in the operation and maintenance of its equipment. Among other things, lawyers say the utility should have shut off power to prevent its lines from starting fires during periods of high wind and drought, a practice employed in California.
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Attention turned to the utility soon after the fires, partly because of videos and photos posted online by people in Maui that seemed to show power lines starting fires. In addition, data from Whisker Labs, a private company that monitors the electrical grid around the country looking for problems that might spark fires in homes, appears to identify serious faults on power lines in the area where the fires started.
Hawaiian Electric has declined to comment in detail about the fires. But the company’s chief executive, Shelee Kimura, said at a news conference on Monday that the company did not have a program that could shut off power pre-emptively to prevent wildfires. She said such a program would have required coordination with emergency workers. Power shut-offs would have made it impossible for people to use medical equipment, water pumps and other essential devices.
“In Lahaina, the electricity powers the pumps that provide the water — and so that was also a critical need during that time,” Ms. Kimura said.
Hawaiian Electric is not the first company to find itself in the spotlight after major wildfires. Aging utility equipment has often been blamed in recent years for igniting devastating fires when it comes in contact with dry vegetation, especially when strong winds are present.
California’s largest electric utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, has been in a similar position several times. State officials identified one of its power lines for setting off the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise. Liability from wildfires forced PG&E to seek bankruptcy protection; the company ultimately agreed to pay $13.5 billion to settle fire claims.
But there are some important differences between California and Hawaii. California law makes it easier to hold utilities liable for wildfires caused by their equipment even if they are not determined to have been negligent. In Hawaii, plaintiffs will have to prove Hawaiian Electric was negligent to hold the utility company liable.
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The Washington Post reported earlier that the company was aware of the mitigating protocols California adopted regarding power lines and wildfire prevention but never enacted them:
Hawaiian Electric, the utility that oversees Maui Electric and provides service to 95 percent of the state’s residents, did not deploy what’s known as a “public power shutoff plan,” which involves intentionally cutting off electricity to areas where big wind events could spark fires. A number of states, including California, have increasingly adopted this safety strategy after what were then the nation’s most destructive and deadliest modern fires, in 2017 and 2018.
Hawaiian Electric was aware that a power shut-off was an effective strategy, documents show, but had not adopted it as part of its fire mitigation plans, according to the company and two former power and energy officials interviewed by The Washington Post. Nor, in the face of predicted dangerous winds, did it act on its own, utility officials said, fearing uncertain consequences.
The decision to avoid shutting off power is reflective of the utility’s struggles to bolster its aging and vulnerable infrastructure against wildfires, said Jennifer Potter, who lives in Lahaina and was a member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission until just nine months ago.
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Doug McLeod, a former energy commissioner for Maui County, also said the utility was aware of the need for a regular shut-down system and to bury lines, especially given the “number of close calls in the past.”
Earlier this week, high winds caused widespread damage to utility infrastructure. The intense gusts knocked down about 30 utility poles across the region, many onto trees and roads, complicating evacuations, according to Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen. He confirmed that some electrical lines were energized when they hit the ground.
Damning indictments against the company, but will it be enough to prove negligence under Hawaiian law?
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