5 ms·

Maui County sues Hawaiian Electric Company for damages from disastrous fires

32 points by DocFeind 3y ago

hindsightbias 3y ago
Declare bankruptcy and ask the State to nationalize the utility. The state will be happy to renegotiate.
- IntelMiner 3y ago
  Better still, the state could nationalize it Privatized infrastructure is one of the greatest lies ever sold Nobody is going to run a second set of sewerage lines, or water pipes, or power cables to every single house. There's no "competition" to be had, only companies hoovering up every last dollar they can at every step of the pipeline from the consumer
  - PM_me_your_math 3y ago
    Government got 1000 people burned alive. How can we stop this from happening? More government! My God.
    - IntelMiner 3y ago
      That's not what I said but go off :)
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    I think energy cooperatives serve as a good model for utilities. Not a private for profit company sacrificing safety for profits, but also not a wasteful inefficient government entity. We had an energy cooperative that serviced our previous house and the quality of service was excellent. Power was restored quickly after storms, customer service was friendly, and best of all, because everyone was a "member" instead of a customer, we got a check back every year with any excess profits that they made. Anecdotal of course, but our current energy supplier is government run and compared to the cooperative it is much more expensive, customer service is worse, and outages tend to be longer.
    - theluketaylor 3y ago
      I like co-ops in general but I think they have a fairly low ceiling of effectiveness and efficiency. Once they cover too much territory or have too many members they tend to lose their way a little. I like our crown corporation model here in Canada for huge infrastructure that has to serve millions of citizens across millions of sq km. Crown corps are fully owned by the relevant legislature, created by a specific act, but are shielded from the daily management that government ministries are subject to. They can side step the public servant salary restrictions that often prevent hiring domain exert public servants, but the crown corp remains fully accountable to cabinet and any profits are returned to citizens. It’s a good mixture of the best benefits of public ownership and private enterprise that usually minimizes the worst downsides of both. Most provinces have their electricity generator and provider as a crown corp, but cities often have their own corporation that handles residential grid connections and billing. Certainly not perfect, but it’s been a generally successful model and it’s fairly rare for a crown corporation to need rescuing. Since Canada is so vast we have a natural risk of monopoly or duopoly for anything involving huge infrastructure buildout like the energy grid or telecommunications. We didn’t learn our lesson well enough with the grid and are really suffering from not having provincial crown corps handling cell networks and internet connectivity.
  - hindsightbias 3y ago
    Private monopoly: takes all the blame, gets sued by state (public profit), raises rates to cover (private subsidy to state payout), gets corporate bailout from feds (double profit) regardless of who runs things State monopoly: Governor gets blamed, impeached. Few hundred top HN posts. State raises taxes to pay off loses. Gets fed bailout if friendlies in WH. Public monopolies don’t make any economic sense.
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago
  So you want the state, the same state who's incompetence got 1000 people burnt alive, to operate the power company? More government is never the answer, especially while the trend of rewarding political affiliation with high-impact jobs that essentially decides who lives or who dies in a natural disaster. Herman Andaya is a perfect example of the incompetence of government. The man had zero background in disaster response, yet somehow beat out dozens of applicants who did. His decision to not sound sirens and warn residents of impending doom was a fatal one. Such gross negligence is deserving of prison time. Sirens would have got people out of their homes, and unlike a tsunami, you can see a fire coming from quite a distance.
anonuser123456 3y ago
“The utility didn't have a plan to cut power, county says” Why didn’t the county? Don’t they literally run the fire department and set all the municipal codes? Sounds like a way to point fingers before the finger gets pointed at county officials.
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago
  If there is one thing government, any government, hates it is accountability and oversight. Shutting off power is not as easy as throwing a switch. Some people rely on power to stay alive. Power operates communications, water and sewer pumps, traffic lights; almost everything. What also could be said, "why didn't local gov do their job, maintain the land by removing overburden, warn residents using existing systems that were working at the time, have an orderly evacuation by not blocking off escape routes, not deny water use, and not lie about their operations, decisions, and protocols." The answer is pretty obvious, the people in charge were political appointees who were wholly incompetent and inept; worried too much about optics and "equity" than people's lives.
  - RoyalHenOil 3y ago
    I live in an area of rural Australia that is prone to bushfire. They shut off our power whenever the fire risk gets high. We don't lose critical infrastructure (water, communications, etc.) because backup generators exist. It would be unheard of to not have backup generators for critical services like these, even barring wildfire risk. Random power outages happen; sometimes a tree falls or sometimes a truck hits a utility pole. This is not to absolve Maui's government of responsibility. It is clear than a LOT of severe and unforgivable mistakes were made that day. But the power company really should have shut the power off.
gedy 3y ago
There is going to be a lot of finger pointing and deflection of responsibility in this tragedy, but the poor local gov't response handling the evacuations should not get lost in this. In wind like this, you will get ignition from other sources as well (arson included) so you need to be prepared to deal with it, no matter the cause.
jacobgorm 3y ago
Here in Denmark, I remember having power lines up in the air on utility poles from back when I was a child. Nowadays they are buried safely under ground, just like the fiber cables and whatever else is needed to keep a modern society running. Why is this not the case in the US?
- ImJamal 3y ago
  It is the case in many places in the US. Many utility companies are working on burying the cables, but it is often slow and expensive so it just takes time. I think a lot of people also don't realize just how huge the US is. PG&E is planning on burying 10,000 miles for example, but according to them that would only be 1/3 of their cables. https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/customer-service/other-services/electric-undergrounding-program/electric-undergrounding-program.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/customer-service/other...

32 points by DocFeind 3y ago

hindsightbias 3y ago

Declare bankruptcy and ask the State to nationalize the utility. The state will be happy to renegotiate.

IntelMiner 3y ago
Better still, the state could nationalize it Privatized infrastructure is one of the greatest lies ever sold Nobody is going to run a second set of sewerage lines, or water pipes, or power cables to every single house. There's no "competition" to be had, only companies hoovering up every last dollar they can at every step of the pipeline from the consumer
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago
  Government got 1000 people burned alive. How can we stop this from happening? More government! My God.
  - IntelMiner 3y ago
    That's not what I said but go off :)
- lockhouse 3y ago
  I think energy cooperatives serve as a good model for utilities. Not a private for profit company sacrificing safety for profits, but also not a wasteful inefficient government entity. We had an energy cooperative that serviced our previous house and the quality of service was excellent. Power was restored quickly after storms, customer service was friendly, and best of all, because everyone was a "member" instead of a customer, we got a check back every year with any excess profits that they made. Anecdotal of course, but our current energy supplier is government run and compared to the cooperative it is much more expensive, customer service is worse, and outages tend to be longer.
  - theluketaylor 3y ago
    I like co-ops in general but I think they have a fairly low ceiling of effectiveness and efficiency. Once they cover too much territory or have too many members they tend to lose their way a little. I like our crown corporation model here in Canada for huge infrastructure that has to serve millions of citizens across millions of sq km. Crown corps are fully owned by the relevant legislature, created by a specific act, but are shielded from the daily management that government ministries are subject to. They can side step the public servant salary restrictions that often prevent hiring domain exert public servants, but the crown corp remains fully accountable to cabinet and any profits are returned to citizens. It’s a good mixture of the best benefits of public ownership and private enterprise that usually minimizes the worst downsides of both. Most provinces have their electricity generator and provider as a crown corp, but cities often have their own corporation that handles residential grid connections and billing. Certainly not perfect, but it’s been a generally successful model and it’s fairly rare for a crown corporation to need rescuing. Since Canada is so vast we have a natural risk of monopoly or duopoly for anything involving huge infrastructure buildout like the energy grid or telecommunications. We didn’t learn our lesson well enough with the grid and are really suffering from not having provincial crown corps handling cell networks and internet connectivity.
- hindsightbias 3y ago
  Private monopoly: takes all the blame, gets sued by state (public profit), raises rates to cover (private subsidy to state payout), gets corporate bailout from feds (double profit) regardless of who runs things State monopoly: Governor gets blamed, impeached. Few hundred top HN posts. State raises taxes to pay off loses. Gets fed bailout if friendlies in WH. Public monopolies don’t make any economic sense.
PM_me_your_math 3y ago
So you want the state, the same state who's incompetence got 1000 people burnt alive, to operate the power company? More government is never the answer, especially while the trend of rewarding political affiliation with high-impact jobs that essentially decides who lives or who dies in a natural disaster. Herman Andaya is a perfect example of the incompetence of government. The man had zero background in disaster response, yet somehow beat out dozens of applicants who did. His decision to not sound sirens and warn residents of impending doom was a fatal one. Such gross negligence is deserving of prison time. Sirens would have got people out of their homes, and unlike a tsunami, you can see a fire coming from quite a distance.

anonuser123456 3y ago

“The utility didn't have a plan to cut power, county says” Why didn’t the county? Don’t they literally run the fire department and set all the municipal codes? Sounds like a way to point fingers before the finger gets pointed at county officials.

PM_me_your_math 3y ago
If there is one thing government, any government, hates it is accountability and oversight. Shutting off power is not as easy as throwing a switch. Some people rely on power to stay alive. Power operates communications, water and sewer pumps, traffic lights; almost everything. What also could be said, "why didn't local gov do their job, maintain the land by removing overburden, warn residents using existing systems that were working at the time, have an orderly evacuation by not blocking off escape routes, not deny water use, and not lie about their operations, decisions, and protocols." The answer is pretty obvious, the people in charge were political appointees who were wholly incompetent and inept; worried too much about optics and "equity" than people's lives.
- RoyalHenOil 3y ago
  I live in an area of rural Australia that is prone to bushfire. They shut off our power whenever the fire risk gets high. We don't lose critical infrastructure (water, communications, etc.) because backup generators exist. It would be unheard of to not have backup generators for critical services like these, even barring wildfire risk. Random power outages happen; sometimes a tree falls or sometimes a truck hits a utility pole. This is not to absolve Maui's government of responsibility. It is clear than a LOT of severe and unforgivable mistakes were made that day. But the power company really should have shut the power off.

gedy 3y ago

There is going to be a lot of finger pointing and deflection of responsibility in this tragedy, but the poor local gov't response handling the evacuations should not get lost in this. In wind like this, you will get ignition from other sources as well (arson included) so you need to be prepared to deal with it, no matter the cause.

jacobgorm 3y ago

Here in Denmark, I remember having power lines up in the air on utility poles from back when I was a child. Nowadays they are buried safely under ground, just like the fiber cables and whatever else is needed to keep a modern society running. Why is this not the case in the US?

ImJamal 3y ago
It is the case in many places in the US. Many utility companies are working on burying the cables, but it is often slow and expensive so it just takes time. I think a lot of people also don't realize just how huge the US is. PG&E is planning on burying 10,000 miles for example, but according to them that would only be 1/3 of their cables. https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/customer-service/other-services/electric-undergrounding-program/electric-undergrounding-program.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/customer-service/other...