A split utility pole and a heap of downed power lines are seen in Lahaina during a visit with officials on Saturday. Lawsuits filed by West Maui residents claim Hawaiian Electric did not shut off the power last week as a fire devastated the town. HECO said the cause of the fire has not been determined and cautioned that short-notice power shut-off programs used on the Mainland also come with risks. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Hawaiian Electric’s top official said the company is still in the “early days” of its response to the fires on Maui and will fully cooperate with investigations as lawsuits allege the utility failed to shut off the power during heavy winds.

“We are in the very early days of responding to this tragedy,” Shelee Kimura, president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric, said during a news conference in Wailuku on Monday. “The things we’ve been focused on are safety, restoration, aligning with the priorities of the state and county to restore the community. We’ve been putting all of our resources to that.

“We will be doing our own investigation. The state will be doing an investigation. We will cooperate fully with that. I think we all believe it’s important to understand what happened and I think we all believe it’s important to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Strong winds kicked up by a passing Category 4 hurricane fueled fast-moving fires that left at least 99 dead and 2,200 structures destroyed in Lahaina as well as hundreds of acres burned and 19 homes leveled Upcountry.

It wreaked havoc on Hawaiian Electric’s extensive system. In West Maui, where the company serves more than 12,000 customers, 400 out of 750 poles were damaged or destroyed, 300 out of 575 transformers were visibly damaged and the Lahaina substation was destroyed as of an assessment Monday morning, Kimura said during a news conference with county, state and federal officials in the Mayor’s Conference Room.

About 80 percent of customers who were without electricity since the fire started Aug. 8 were back online as of Monday, including the Lahaina Civic Center and neighboring areas. Another 2,300 customers in West Maui and 103 customers Upcountry were still without power.

Roughly 400 HECO employees from across all five islands the company serves have been working to restore power, in addition to contractors from Hawaii and the Mainland. Kimura said employees and first responders are “working under almost unimaginable conditions and many of them suffering personal loss themselves, but are still on the job working to rebuild and support Maui and their friends and family in the community.”

But as the company works to restore power, some lawsuits are questioning why Hawaiian Electric didn’t do more in the lead-up to the fire to warn residents and prepare for potential damages.

Plaintiffs Nova Burnes and Woodley West are seeking to represent all Maui County residents “who suffered property or economic injuries due to wildfires” in Kula and Lahaina. They say Hawaiian Electric should have known the risk that the high winds and dry brush would pose to their overhead lines, especially with a red flag warning in effect. Multiple utility poles went down in Lahaina, which state and county officials said was part of the reason they couldn’t let people back into the area.

“Defendants knew the threat of fire to Lahaina and Kula was extremely serious given the predicted high winds and propensity and risk of fire due to power lines and/or poles being knocked down by high winds that could rapidly cause and spread fire, particularly given the severe drought conditions in and around Maui and particularly in Lahaina and Kula,” the lawsuit filed Saturday in 2nd Circuit Court alleges.

“Despite these known and recognized risks, Defendants remained in operation and continued to supply power without warning the residents of Lahaina and Kula that it was reasonably foreseeable that falling trees and branches would break electrical lines and cause wildfires that would place the Class in extreme risk of harm to their lives, homes and businesses,” the lawsuit claims.

Another lawsuit was filed by Monday by Lahaina homeowner Darlene Gomes; Lahaina renters Paula Jelsma, Anderson Byrne and Saif Shaban; and Lahaina business owner Doris Daniela White of Maui Memories Inc. They also claim that Hawaiian Electric “left their powerlines energized,” despite an aging system of infrastructure that passed through vegetated areas and sagged in places.

“Defendants have a duty to adequately operate, monitor, maintain, and repair their electric utility infrastructures to ensure that they do not cause fires,” the lawsuit says. “This duty includes deenergizing their powerlines during periods of critical fire risk to prevent fires and to allow first responders to safely access ignited areas to put out fires.”

Both lawsuits are seeking damages to be determined at trial.

Hawaiian Electric said in a statement on Monday evening that “we don’t comment on pending litigation.”

“Our immediate focus is on supporting emergency response efforts on Maui and restoring power for our customers and communities as quickly as possible. At this early stage, the cause of the fire has not been determined and we will work with the state and county as they conduct their review,” Hawaiian Electric said.

When asked during the news conference why the company hadn’t shut off power, Kimura said, “It’s still in the early days, we’re still looking at all the information, and we haven’t actually had a chance to do all of that at this time.”

“You may be talking about what happens in California in the shut-off program,” Kimura said. “We, like most utilities, don’t have that program.”

In California, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., whose equipment has been linked to massive wildfires that led to manslaughter charges and hefty fines, has settings on some of its lines that will automatically shut off power during emergencies or when lines go down.

“It’s worth noting that even in places where this has been used, it has been controversial and it’s not universally accepted,” Kimura said. “It can be seen as creating a hardship for those customers that have medical needs that are at higher risk. So these programs, particularly for elder or other vulnerable people who have specialized medical equipment, this can be very high risk for them. That’s why many don’t have it.”

She added that such a program “would require coordination with first responders, and as you have probably seen and maybe even reported that in Lahaina, the electricity powers the pumps that provide the water. And so that was also a critical need during that time.”

“So to be clear, it wasn’t an option? Shutting off the power wasn’t an option?” a reporter asked.

“There are choices that need to be made and all of those factors play into it, and so every utility will look at that differently depending on their situation,” Kimura responded.

Hawaiian Electric added in its statement that, “Our company has protocols that may be used when high winds are expected, including not enabling the automatic reclosure of circuits that may open during a weather event. This was done before the onset of high winds last week. At this early stage, no cause for the fire has been determined.”

The general fire response is currently under scrutiny by the state Attorney General’s Office, which announced Friday that it had launched a review “of critical decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during and after the wildfires on both Maui and Hawaii islands.”

* Managing Editor Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.