Oahu finds its way through the dark

[dkf]

The stability of O'ahu's power grid is under scrutiny again after the second islandwide blackout in two years triggered a water shortage, left people trapped in elevators, shuttered major shopping centers and raised concerns about the well-being of the next president of the United States, who is vacationing in Kailua.
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While the exact cause of the blackout was still under investigation, witnesses reported seeing lightning strikes near four HECO transmission lines — three emanating from the Kahe Power Plant in Wai'anae and one from the Waiau Power Plant in Pearl City.

All four lines went down within 20 minutes of each other, triggering a chain reaction that eventually shut down all six generators at the Kahe Power Plant and two generators at Waiau, HECO spokesman Darren Pai said.

HECO has been through a similar drill before.

On Oct. 15, 2006, separate 6.7 and 6.0 magnitude earthquakes centered off the coast of the Big Island knocked out power to more than 291,000 HECO customers on O'ahu for about 15 hours. In the aftermath, about 1,400 customers filed claims for damage ranging from spoiled food to damaged electronic equipment.

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081228/NEWS01/812280364/1352

Anybody understand why this keeps happening to us? Is it because our power company is messing up or are we expecting too much if we ask them to do better?