Emergency officials are warning residents to brace for the possibility of extended power outages as Hawaii enters an El Nino season expected to generate five to 13 tropical storms in the Central Pacific Basin.

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The warning comes as Hawaii grapples with its energy future amid ambitious renewable‑­energy targets, and the state energy office says resiliency remains a priority.

It took more than two months for crews to restore power on Kauai after Hurricane Iniki knocked out 5,000 utility poles in 1992. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, workers needed 11 months to fully restore power to the island.

Hawaii Emergency Management Agency information specialist Patrick Daley said a direct hit from a hurricane “would have the power to disrupt our energy supply for weeks or months, especially in rural and rugged areas where repairing utility poles and power lines is difficult.”

As emergency officials encourage residents to prepare for the worst, utility companies are stepping up efforts to harden infrastructure against natural disasters. Officials have reiterated that coordination across agencies is critical to expedite restoration and recovery.

Prioritizing
resiliency

Gov. Josh Green said resilience must remain a top priority as Hawaii faces increasing threats from hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters.

“Hawaii is making stra­tegic investments to strengthen our energy systems, protect critical infrastructure and support communities before emergencies occur,” Green said. “By working across agencies and with public and private partners, we are building a more resilient Hawaii that can protect lives, maintain essential services and recover stronger from whatever challenges lie ahead.”

Colton Ching, senior vice president of planning and technology for Hawaiian Electric Company, said HECO has enough fuel back stocked to last 45 days in a worst case scenario, but warned that port damage would heavily influence how quickly crews could repair the grid. The 45‑day estimate excludes any damage to transmission lines, circuit breakers or other infrastructure that requires shipped‑in supplies to repair.

Manpower for repairs is also a vulnerability if ports or the airport get damaged in a storm, he said. While HECO is a part of a national mutual aid program for utilities, contractors can’t go to a nearby staging area and immediately travel into the impacted area once a storm passes like they do on the mainland.

“Hawaii is in a very, very different and unique situation. There is no set of freeways that our neighboring utilities can just drive over to Hawaii to do what’s done in almost every other state on the mainland,” Ching said. “We’re very dependent upon the harbors, the airports, the ships and the aircraft to really affect the recovery that we would like to do.”

HECO is spending more than $100 million annually in capital investments and operating expenses to improve grid resiliency, Ching said, adding that retrofits for different types of natural disasters tend to overlap with one another. The agency prioritizes replacing poles in wildfire risk areas and clearing vegetation, he said, which has advantages for both wildfires and hurricanes. HECO also reroutes circuits from hard‑to‑reach locations to make them more accessible.

“Resilience is defined as both resistance to damage, but also the recovery from any damage,” he said. “Having (infrastructure) in a place that’s accessible, where you don’t need a helicopter to do repairs, is part of our resilience work.”

HECO replaced 1,650 poles, upgraded 850 poles and trimmed vegetation along 2,334 miles of circuits across the state in 2025. It also installed AI-assisted fire-detection cameras in 144 locations, installed 101 weather stations, established a hazard watch office and hired a staff meteorologist.

Ching said HECO develops and deploys microgrids across the islands, a decade‑­long effort meant to power “resilience hubs” when disasters knock out other parts of the grid. On Oahu, two microgrids operate from Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Airfield, which allows the Hawaii National Guard, Army, Queen’s Medical Center in Wahiawa and the airship at Wheeler to have full electrical service. A microgrid project at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam is slated to finish in 2029, he said, while similar projects for critical services in Maui County are also in the works.

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The military bases offer alternative shipping routes for emergency supplies, he said, which can strengthen and speed up the island’s recovery.

Lessons from Kauai

Kauai also has embraced microgrids in its energy system, said Beth Amaro, Kauai Island Utility Cooperative member services and communications manager. At the time Iniki hit, the island only had the Port Allen plant on the south shore, which operates off of fossil fuels.

Now, 34 years later, the island is a leader in the renewable energy transition, and is on track to generate 100% of its energy through renewables by 2033. The cooperative has eight solar facilities — two of which have their own microgrids in the event of an emergency — along with four hydropower plants and one biomass plant. The island also is developing two more solar and battery projects that will also be retrofitted with microgrids, Amaro said.

Resiliency has been a priority throughout the transition, with the memory of Hurricane Iniki influencing how the cooperative strengthens its infrastructure.

For example, Amaro said, Kauai has retrofitted 80% of its transmission circuits with steel poles over the past three decades to better withstand high wind. She added that infrastructure itself, like solar panels, is highly resistant to hurricane winds but noted that incoming debris slamming into a panel — along with damage to transmission lines —poses the main risks in a storm.

The key advantage for Kauai’s energy resiliency is renewable energy itself, Amaro said. The island relies far less on imported fuel than the other island, making it less vulnerable to any supply chain disruptions caused by damaged ports.

“We have what we need right here,” she said. “We have the sun, our hydro­-projects have water flowing. Our biomass plant is a closed-loop system here, so they’re growing all of the feed stock for their biomass operation.”

She added that customers with rooftop solar can power themselves for a period of time if their infrastructure survives a storm.

The cooperative also keeps a back-stock of poles and replacement supplies that can sustain the island through about a month of work following a hurricane, she said, helping alleviate pressure in the event ports are damaged. She added that drone technology that didn’t exist in 1992 now enables the utility to survey damage and make appropriate plans to address it quickly.

Preparation key

The Hawaii State Energy Office said it is currently managing eight resiliency and reliability projects with $50 million of federal funds through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Department of Energy across the state. The projects include infrastructure hardening, advanced monitoring, community microgrids and risk mitigation measures.

Hardening infrastructure against extreme weather, expanding battery storage and microgrids and maintaining access to replacement equipment helps prevent a prolonged outage, the agency said.

Daley said people need to be ready to sustain themselves without power. Battery-powered radios, camp stoves and back-up batteries and generators — especially for those with powered medical devices or refrigerated medicine — will play a crucial role, especially in the initial days. He noted that the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative offers a $200 rebate for medical device power back-up.

“The key is to be prepared,” he said, “to keep these backup devices charged and have a plan for how you will expend energy.”

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