������Ƶ

With his power out and burger meat going bad, Don Murphy, the owner of Murphy’s Bar and Grill, served sliders cooked on his outside grill to Hawaiian Electric Co. workers as they toiled to restore power to Chinatown in mid-June.

Now Murphy wants HECO to pay for the air-conditioning system that he says blew up when his power finally surged back on.

Murphy is one of about 3,000 HECO customers affected by the outages that started after a fire damaged underground cables feeding power to Chinatown, downtown and areas near the State Capitol on the night of June 13. Power went off the next morning and was down for 10 hours. It turned off again June 18 and stayed off for three days.

For business owners like Murphy, the time without power meant his employees lost hundreds of dollars in wages and tips. He had to throw away fridge-loads of food and his restaurant lost four days of foot traffic.

“Nearly all the restaurants down here were closed,” he said. “Four days of no revenue is a big deal.”

Restaurants make up the bulk of Chinatown’s businesses. While some places had generators to keep the lights on and refrigerators running, most were forced to close. This was especially hard for mom-and-pop shops that rely on their daily revenue. 

For instance, Miller Wing Royer, owner of on Pauahi Street, lost $7,000 of his freshly made ice cream. He had to stay closed for 10 extra days to restock his supply of ice cream flavors like Old Pali Road — a mix of chocolate, whiskey, marshmallows and macadamia nuts. 

“It takes a long time to make ice cream,” he said. “It’s not like owning a restaurant where you can make and serve food in the same day.”

HECO customers can file for “any loss caused by the outage” within 30 days of the blackout, or July 20, said Jim Kelly, HECO’s vice president of government and community relations and corporate communications.

This includes kitchen machinery that blew up during a power surge. That’s good news for Murphy, whose air conditioner broke when power was restored. He plans to file with HECO for funds to replace the system, but he probably cannot get reimbursed for lost workers’ wages or revenue due to the outages.

“I guess I could technically file, but I won’t see any money,” Murphy said. 

HECO does not typically pay for lost business, revenue or wages, Kelly said. But he said the company may make exceptions for businesses in extenuating circumstances.

“We know that it was very disruptive to a lot of small businesses, especially,” he said.

Restaurant owners also can try to file for inventory that spoiled or had to be thrown away during the outages, but Kelly could not promise that they would get reimbursed.

“We’ve told people to include inventory,” Kelly said. “But, again, we’re not saying that means you’re going to get compensated.”

Investigations typically take about 30 days, but they may take more time as HECO faces a crush of lawsuits related to the Lahaina fire last year. Kelly said the timeframe depends on the circumstances.

“Each claim is unique and each outage is unique,” he said.

Restaurant owners must show evidence that they lost inventory or had a machine break by providing documents such as receipts, invoices and photos. Kelly said that customers who cannot substantiate a claim should submit a cost estimate and HECO will try to work with that.

“We don’t want people to feel like, ‘Oh gosh, I don’t have a receipt for every bit of all this stuff,'” he said.

Kelly encourages customers to file even if they feel their supporting evidence is not enough.

So far only about 200 customers in Chinatown have filed claims with HECO.

Business interruption insurance will help some restaurant owners. But the insurance only kicks in after three continuous days of lost services.

Hole-in-the-wall restaurants, or any businesses without insurance, will have to cover the cost of property damage on their own.

Language Barrier

Language was one unforeseen barrier for some Chinatown restaurant owners trying to file claims with HECO. Many owners speak Chinese and Vietnamese, said Wesley Fong, who leads the Chinatown Task Force, an extension of the Honolulu Police Department established under Mayor Rick Blangiardi in 2021. 

To help Chinese and Vietnamese speakers file claims, Fong and community members on the task force went door-to-door delivering translated paperwork.

But there was another issue some HECO customers were not expecting. Fong said there’s confusion among owners about what restaurants can and cannot file for.

HECO’s claim paperwork says restaurant owners may file for anything lost due to the outages, but customers like Royer don’t know if that means uncooked food or prepared food or something else.

Fong has sympathy for small business owners like Royer, who runs Wing Ice Cream Parlor by himself.

“Imagine you own an ice cream store and 100 gallons melt into soup,” Fong said. “It’s hard to get back on your feet.”

Fong said the June power outages will result in several, if not dozens, of Chinatown businesses having to close over the next month.

Concerns About The Future

HECO’s investigation into what started the fire that caused the outages and how likely it is to happen again is ongoing, leaving business owners like Murphy worried about their future in Chinatown.

Kelly believes the outages started after a fire damaged underground cables between Nuuanu Ave. and Bethel St.

While HECO has not officially determined the cause, Kelly says the underground cables may have gotten too hot and set themselves on fire.

Most of HECO’s utilities in Chinatown were installed in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.

To prevent future outages from happening, HECO is working on a plan to replace all the underground cables in Chinatown and downtown.

“We’re getting our engineers and planners together and thinking, how can we do this faster, what’s it going to take?” Kelly said.

Some small business owners are skeptical that HECO will pay.

Last year, HECO only paid 69 of 671 claims made on Oahu, or about 10%, according to the company’s annual report for 2023. The total payout was $215,178.

As for the remaining 90% of claims made on Oahu in 2023, the filing says 528 were denied, withdrawn or closed due to a customer not responding to investigation inquiries. There are still 143 unresolved claims from last year.