Just over a week after Hurricane Lala, the Hawaii County Department of Water Supply is continuing to assess damage to its systems and working to restore full services to some of the most impacted parts of Ka‘u as well as Hawi and upper Mountain View.

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Just over a week after Hurricane Lala, the Hawaii County Department of Water Supply is continuing to assess damage to its systems and working to restore full services to some of the most impacted parts of Ka‘u as well as Hawi and upper Mountain View.

At a meeting of the Water Board on Tuesday, Manager-Chief Engineer Keith Okamoto said the department has been using generators to power wells and booster stations in areas where electricity has not yet been reconnected and tankers to haul water to impacted communities.

“I think we get maybe close to 97% of our customers with water,” he said at the meeting. “They shouldn’t see any difference whether it’s generator or hauled water.”

However, he acknowledged there are limitations to this approach and “essential use only” remains in effect for people in these areas.

“We can only use (Department of Health) certified tankers to put water into our system … ,” he said. “And we only get so much of those DOH certified tankers, and they only get so much drivers, so we’re doing as much as we can, but we really feel for the guys who’ve been without water for however long it’s been.”

Okamoto said the well serving Na‘alehu recently regained power, but the area remains under a boil water notice until a full assessment can be made of the condition of the infrastructure.

“We’re recharging Na‘alehu, but we have an active boiled water notice that’s going on there because we suspect storm water entered the system,” he said. “So, for now, we’re going to keep that whole system on boil water.”

A precautionary boil water notice for Pahala was lifted last week after test results came back clean.

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“We had Pahala on boil water, but after several rounds of water quality testing, we confirmed the water’s good,” Okamoto said.

He said the department is focused on addressing the infrastructure damage in the Ka‘u area.

“We get damaged pipes all over, and maybe not mains, but laterals,” he said. “So, as we are recharging the line, as we are pushing water through the system, we gotta flush, because storm water probably got into the system. And then we also got to check if it leaks as we re-energize the system and and try to clamp down those leaks so we stop throwing water away. So, that’s in progress now.”

He said members of the department did an aerial assessment of the region in a fire department helicopter on Saturday.

“Our primary source above Waiohinu used to be Mountain House Tunnel. We counted at least 16 washouts on that stretch, and we could visibly see a couple washed-out areas closer to the source … ,” he said. “Other places we saw water line exposed. We don’t know if it was damaged and leaking, but at some places, it was obvious some of the pipes was washed down.”

Okamoto said the department is seeking funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the necessary repairs.

“It’s not our first rodeo, so typically we set up a special account account for all these disaster-related expenses that we’re going to submit to FEMA,” he said.

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Email Grace Inez Adams at [email protected].