Water Supply Apologizes for Timing of Emergency Water Shutoff in Waimea
The Department of Water Supply (DWS), County of Hawai‘i, sincerely apologizes to its customers and
the general public for the last-minute notice of an emergency water shutoff that affected the Lakeland Subdivision of Waimea for much of the day on Wednesday, November 27, the day before Thanksgiving.
Implementing a water shutoff right before a major holiday was not ideal timing. However, it was determined that there was a high risk of a main break, possibly on Thanksgiving day and for an unknown duration. The Department decided that it would be prudent and less disruptive to do an emergency, proactive repair than risk an outage on Thanksgiving day. Whenever feasible, DWS schedules system repairs, fire hydrant flow tests, and other planned work that disrupts water service during periods when the fewest customers are affected. Unfortunately, that timing flexibility was not possible in this instance.
DWS announced the shutoff via a news release, social media posts, and on its website early on Tuesday afternoon, but information of the shutoff did not reach some affected water customers who lost service the following day while preparing holiday meals. DWS regrets it was unable to provide all customers with advanced notice of the shutoff and plans to better inform customers of emergency work affecting their water service, possibly by deploying electronic message boards in the future.
Updates can be found at www.hawaiidws.org, www.facebook.com/HawaiiDWS/, and @hawaiidws. Customers needing more information may call (808) 961-8050 during normal business hours, (808) 961-8790 for after-hours emergencies, or email: dws@hawaiidws.org.
Thank you for your understanding.
This is your Hawaiʻi County Department of Water Supply.