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Update 23:
https://www.mauinews.com/news/local...r-utility-is-sued-over-devastating-maui-fires
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/26/dea...ed-by-bare-electrical-wire-leaning-poles.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/maui-fire-hawaii-missing-b2399942.html
Shares of Hawaiian Electric Co.’s parent fell more than 18 percent by market close Friday, one day after the utility was sued by Maui County over the fires that devastated Lahaina earlier this month.
Maui County accused Hawaiian Electric of negligently failing to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions — saying that the destruction from the deadly Aug. 8 fires could have been avoided if the company had taken essential actions. Outrage towards Hawaiian Electric grew as witness accounts and video indicated that sparks from power lines ignited fires as utility poles snapped in the winds, which were driven by a passing hurricane.
In the weeks since the fires — which killed at least 115 people and left an unknown number of others missing — broke out, Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc.’s market capitalisation has fallen from $4.1 billion to $1.1 billion.
Late Thursday the company said it would suspend its quarterly dividend of 36 cents per share, starting in the third quarter, in order to improve its cash position.
In a Friday report analysts at Wells Fargo said that Hawaiian Electric is 'potentially under severe financial duress' and 'could face a future liquidity event' — pointing to the company’s struggles to bring in external funds and recent downgrading of credit ratings from the S&P, as well as the costs of normal operating expenses and an upcoming $100 million debt maturity for the utility.
'The investigative and legal processes needed to potentially absolve the utility of the mounting wildfire-related liabilities are likely multiyear,' the analysts wrote. 'As such, we remain of the opinion that a bankruptcy reorganisation is still perhaps the most plausible path forward given what appears to be an inevitable liquidity crunch.'
Beyond litigation from Maui County Hawaiian Electric is also facing several lawsuits from Lahaina residents as well as one from some of its own investors, who accused it of fraud in a federal lawsuit on Thursday, alleging that it failed to disclose that its wildfire prevention and safety measures were inadequate.
In Thursday’s suit Maui County alleged that Hawaiian Electric knew that high winds 'would topple power poles, knock down power lines, and ignite vegetation' — pointing to the utility’s duty to properly maintain and repair equipment, as well as to trim vegetation to prevent contact.
In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows -- those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.
Videos and images analysed by The Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.
Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to 'an obsolete 1960s standard,' were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105-mile-per-hour winds. A 2019 filing said it had fallen behind in replacing the old wooden poles because of other priorities and warned of a 'serious public hazard' if they failed.
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The official number of missing people has been reduced to 288.
At least we're down to only 288 missing people nearly 3 weeks later
