County apologizes for emergency water shutoff day before Thanksgiving in Waimea

Hawai‘i County on Tuesday is sorry for a last-minute notice and service shutoff for a portion of Waimea that lasted much of the day before Thanksgiving.

The Department of Water Supply “sincerely apologizes” to water customers and the general public for the timing of an emergency water shutoff Nov. 27 that affected customers in the Lakeland Subdivision from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. after it was extended from its original end time of 2 p.m.

“Implementing a water shutoff right before a major holiday was not ideal timing,” said the department in a news release.

Whenever feasible, the department schedules system repairs, fire hydrant flow tests and other planned work that disrupts water service during periods when the fewest customers will be affected.

Unfortunately, that flexibility was not determined to be possible in this instance.

Officials determined there was a high risk of a water main break, possibly on Thanksgiving Day, that would have lasted for an unknown time period.

The department decided it would be more prudent and less disruptive to be proactive and do an emergency repair than to risk an outage on Thanksgiving.

An announced about the emergency shutoff was sent out via a news release, social media posts and on the department’s website early the afternoon of Nov. 26, but information about the shutoff did not reach some of the affected water customers until the following day, while they were preparing holiday meals.

“The Department of Water Supply regrets it was unable to provide all customers with advanced notice about the shutoff and plans to better inform customers about emergency work affecting their water service, possibly by deploying electronic message boards, in the future,” the department said in its release.

Updates can be found on the Department of Water Supply website, its Facebook page and by following @hawaiidws on Instagram and X.

Customers who need more information can call 808-961-8050 during normal business hours, 808-961-8790 for after-hours emergencies or by emailing to dws@hawaiidws.org.