Tropical Storm Lala left more than 111,000 utility customers without power across Hawaii on Monday. According to data from PowerOutage.us, Honolulu County reported the highest number of outages with 65,069 customers affected, followed by Hawaii County with 39,380. The National Hurricane Center reported that the storm was located a few hundred miles west-southwest of Lihue as of Monday.
The weather system, which was previously a hurricane, moved through the islands causing heavy rain and strong winds. Social media footage from Sunday showed a river overflowing in Hilo due to the intense rainfall. Hawaiian Electric, the utility company serving approximately 95% of the state's population, stated that the storm caused major damage to infrastructure in remote areas of Hawaii Island and Maui.
Crews worked through Sunday night to restore power to nearly 55,000 customers in East Honolulu, Mililani, and the Windward areas. As of 7:00 a.m. HST on Monday, Hawaiian Electric reported that 117,300 of its customers were still without power. The utility has deployed helicopters and drones on Oahu and Maui to conduct damage assessments in rugged and remote terrain that is difficult to reach by ground.
The scale of the disruption is significant for the state’s utility infrastructure, with roughly 11% of the 1.4 million residents potentially impacted based on customer-to-population ratios, though the utility notes it serves 95% of the total population. Beyond the immediate loss of service, the storm has caused physical damage to the power grid in remote areas of Maui and Hawaii Island. Residents in these locations will likely see a slower restoration process as the utility must first complete aerial assessments using drones and helicopters due to the rugged terrain.
Restoration efforts are ongoing, but the timing for full recovery in the hardest-hit remote areas remains unclear as damage assessments continue. The knock-on effects include potential water conservation needs if electric pumps are affected and the economic impact on small businesses forced to close during the outages. Hawaiian Electric has not yet provided a final deadline for total restoration, but crews continue to work on the 71,600 customers remaining without power in the Windward, Leeward, and Honolulu areas.