 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. Bingo, we're back with my favorite show, right Maria? Yeah. Hawaii, the state of clean energy. That's Maria Tomes, the co-chair. Right there. I mean, co-host. Co-host. And co-chair too. If it's a committee, sure. We call ourselves a committee. To my left is Shannon Tanganan, and she's with Hawaiian Electric. She's a spokes lady for Hawaiian Electric. Thank you for coming down. Thank you for having us. We want to hear everything that you do and everything that you want to say. We want it all. Well, today we want to focus on our computer software being upgraded and how it might affect our customers. So we're gonna be cutting over to our new system, September 28th through October 1st. So we just wanted to let customers know that we are going to have some, you know, delays perhaps. And then we also won't have a lot of our customer information, like their customer account information, readily available on September 28th and October 1st. Okay, so how will this affect me? I mean, the kind of contacts I might have with Hawaiian Electric. If I want to, what, pay my bill? Yeah, if you want to pay your bill or if you want to find out how much your bill is, you know, call. You have to have your account number when you do call on the 28th and the 1st. After that, it'll be better. You can search on my name, I guess. Yes, after that, it'll be better. But we are preparing folks in advance for possible delays because it is a new system and our employees are navigating the new system. So we just want people to know that, you know, it'll take a little bit of time for us to get totally up to speed. And we love new systems. Yeah, you know, sometimes it's hard. It's, you know, I remember Neil Abercrombie wanted to upgrade the whole state, whole state, everything. And he really thought that he was going to do that. But, you know, and he brought in a guy, Sonny Bagualia was his name, from Washington, from GSA, they were going to look at every computer in the state. And it took him two years to write a report. And he wrote a report, he said, the system is really, really old. Thank you. Pretty much, you know, the idea was that you take all these little disparate systems, you make it into one system. And now you're in the 21st century, it's good. Yeah. And I take it that's what's happening. That's what's happening. We're trying to get all our legacy systems, you know, that can't communicate with one another, you know, getting rid of that. And then we're putting in a whole universal system that can handle all our accounting, HR, whatever, you know, whatever we need. So it's internal and external both. Internal and external, yeah. And I take it that this is, I don't need to get a new computer to look at look at your page. Your page will change. My computer doesn't have to change. No, your computer does not have to change. I guess go on your website, and it'll be faster and, you know, have more information and it'll be connected better. Yeah. Well, yeah, in some ways, I mean, what we want to just make sure people know is that on September 28 through October 1, you won't be able to do to call in without having your account number. You know, you have to have that kind of information. If you go to our payment centers, you'll need to have a remit and stub so that you have proper credit being applied to your account. You know, these kinds of things that you don't normally have to have. We just ask that customers be aware that, you know, you'll have to have this information. Information. Yes. So the transition will be over in a few days and then you'll be up and running on the new system. Yeah, we'll be up and running. But again, we do want to caution that, you know, we could have higher call volume. So there could be some delays. Really, if you're planning a move at the end of the month, September 28 through October 1, please don't call during that time frame to start, stop, or relocate service. We just want you to call now and schedule it ahead of time. That's a good idea. Yeah. Otherwise, you'll be subject to, you know, perhaps a three to five business days delay. Yeah, get it in the database right away. Yeah. So is the balance between going online on the Hawaiian Electric website and doing things and making calls to Hawaiian Electric at the regular number? Is that going to change? Is it still going to be both? It's still going to be both. But both will be affected during that time frame. Yeah, because the phones will be connected to the whole system. Is it true that when I call and I get a recorded voice, it's going to be yours, Shannon? No, no, it won't be mine. Could they fix that and include you? I like your voice. Thank you. But no, it won't be my voice. But what we do want to let people know is that we won't be doing any automated calls during that time period as well. So you won't get the reminder calls, or, you know, hey, you have to pay your bill. Okay. And if you do get calls during that time period, you might want to, you know, be suspicious because we want to make sure that the scammers aren't, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, what's it going to be like when everything is in place? When everything is in place, everyone is is good to go. I mean, it'll be will be a much more efficient operation. Everything will be streamlined. So we just hope, you know, that'll be a quick project. Yeah, be patient with you. Yeah. So you're going to be on all the Hawaiian Electric Islands, Big Island Maui, Molokai. And when I, well, that'd be good. Yeah, change information. Exactly. The machines will talk to each other. It'll be easier. Yeah. But most definitely. Good. There'll be a lesson to us all. Let's talk one more thing. Let's talk about hurricanes. We have Norman and Olivia. I can't make up my mind, which is my favorite. Right now, Norman is. Okay, you're moving for Norman. Because he's not, you know, okay, well, he's not headed right toward us. Yeah. Stay away. Yeah. So what are you doing? If anything, to prepare? What? What? What is, you know, what is the plan? If any? Well, we're still operating. And so, you know, we're monitoring very closely the activities of both hurricanes. And we just want to make sure that our company is ready. We were we had that scare with Lane. So we've kind of been through this exercise, you know, in recent weeks. So we're really preparing and we know where to position people, you know, we're monitoring the storms and hoping for the best. Yeah, we all are. They're happening more frequently now, though. It's like one after the other. Maybe the world would get smart and stop emitting carbon. It'll be better off. Really want to ask any questions? No, I'm good. I wish you well. Thank you. Thank you. And the man in the middle who's been silent up to this point, is Robert Merida from Honolulu Board of Water Supply. Welcome to the show. Thanks. And do you have any questions you'd like to put to Shannon? Put me on the spot. No questions, but you know, the we're, we consider ourselves sister utilities. And because we're, we're almost joined at the hip. Because as long as Hawaiian Electric is able to deliver power, water should basically be in good shape during a disaster. It's when we separate ourselves, if we lose power for an extended period, short periods, we can, we can tolerate that. But extended periods cause it a lot of heartache and challenges. We're going to talk more about that in a minute, exactly a minute. Because at this point, we're going to say farewell. I hate to say farewell to Shannon. And then we take a minute break and we'll come back and she wouldn't be here. I'm sorry. I'm going to talk to Robert exclusively after that. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Come back soon. Okay, I will. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Sounds like scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At DiveHeart, we believe that to be true. We say forget the moon. DiveHeart can help children, adults and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on Earth. Search diveheart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. That's you. I want to know. Will you watch my show? I hope you do. It's on Tuesdays at one o'clock and it's out of the comfort zone. And I'll be your host, RB Kelly. See you there. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the cohost of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. Okay, we're back. We're live. We're here together. Just us guys. Alone at last. Talk about water. Okay, and if you don't remember, that's Maria Tomei. Next time remember to be on the exam. And Robert Merida, he is the executive assistant at the Honolulu Border Water Supply. This is one of the quietest utility around actually. We don't hear that much about you. Oh, and that's what we like on pumping, so to say. Right, right. We try to stay out of the news as much as possible. So the less, the less news, the better. So right there. And, you know, it's a, and you have, you have great Christmas decorations. And the water is always, you know, coming off that fountain you have right from your property. Yeah, you wouldn't irritate it. It's, it's amazing at how many people look forward to those displays every year. And the fountain is is a prominent piece of that that decoration, even though it's there all year round. We should appreciate you more. That's what I think. I agree. Okay, you were talking before about the relationship of electricity and water. Can you explain more about that? Yeah, so, you know, Shannon was a great lead into it. So, you know, we've ever since Hurricane Hector gave us a pretty good scare. We've been effectively on standby for for hurricanes, and we haven't had a whole lot of time. It's been maybe a week or two between these major, major hurricane systems. So we now have Norman and Olivia basically doing a beeline for the islands. We're staying in close contact with National Weather Service with Department of Emergency Management, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency as well, staying on top of things, making sure that we're prepared should the direction turn a little bit, because it doesn't take a whole lot of directional change in order for it to really affect the islands. So we're in the process now of we've pre staged many of our mobile generators. We're highly dependent on electricity to run our pumps in order to draw the water from the wells and to distribute it throughout the island. Mobile generators, it's a truck or something. It's a trailer mounted to a location. Yes, exactly. Where the pump that's ordinarily there is not working is at the end. In case that we should lose power for an extended period, we have mobile generators that can that are powerful enough to restart motors to draw waters from from deep depths and to push water to the areas where we need the water to be. I know this is going to sound like a silly question, but you have the truck and the truck has a big pump in it. And now there's a pipe down under the street. How do I get the water from the pipe into the truck and then back from the truck into the other pipe? Well, it's actually so the general it's a generator. So we're we're just delivering power off of that mobile generator. The pumps stay the pump is exactly where it is. Yeah, it's in that fixed location. Take it and you connect you connect the power. We connect the wires from the generator underground or they overgrown. They're they're above ground. For the most part they're a little steel box. They're in a building. So a lot of times you will see that you'll see our very distinguished looking board of water supply buildings. They're green. They have an art deco type of looking field to them. They've been around for a while. Yeah, they've been around for a while. But you know, they're very, you know, they've been around around for so long that they blend into the environment. But you see them in the neighborhood color and little drop of water. Yep. Yeah, it's water is for life. And we're talking before, you know, how long can you exist without water in your body? Not long. I wouldn't want to test that. It's a matter of days and you're in trouble. You're right. Right, right. So that's why, you know, water is life. That's that's our our theme. It's important to sustain your life as well as for for to develop to to grow your foods and everything else. So it's it's it's a critical piece as part of the overall emergency management plan for this state is to to ensure the continued delivery of water. So let's assume that we have a bad storm. Let's assume that the power goes out, given neighborhood or even larger area. Let's assume and this sounds like a good assumption that you can't have water unless somebody is pumping it to you, right? No pump, no electric, no pump, no water, no nothing. And then you're really thirsty. Right. And you don't have a long time to live without water. And that and that stands for you alone. But it also stands for everybody in the community, because we don't do well without water. Okay, so how what do you do when the electricity goes out? So your electric pumps, you know, don't work or so that's the first the first fallback are the mobile generators that they run on. They were they run on diesel fuel. But again, when you're in a crisis situation, fuel also now becomes a commodity that has to be carefully managed. Because not only as important as we truly believe water to be, there's also things like hospitals that that need water, or that need that need fuel rather to to continue their their services there. So there's competing interests for for the fuel. These are diesel generators in trucks that you do you have enough of them to, to service every pump? No. And we were very open about that. When we did an estimate and these these the mobile generators that we have they're strategically placed to service the greatest number of households and accounts. We can prop if if everything was deployed properly, and we are in a situation where we need to solely rely on generators, we can service roughly 70% of the island. But you know, that's one of the things that scares us to 70% sounds like a good number. But on an island like Oahu with a million plus people, you know, we're talking about 300,000 people who may not have water delivered to their homes. If you can't provide generated electricity to those 30% to 30% of the pumps, I guess it's simple as that. Does that mean that the people in that area won't get any water or they'll get water at a very low pressure? What does it mean? It's a little bit of both. There we do have some systems that are gravity fed. So it's not solely dependent on on electricity to get water. And it'll be at a greatly reduced pressure, but it will have some water delivered to them. In a crisis like that, we would basically be deploying, we call the water buffaloes, they're the small water water trucks that you see them at our main breaks to service the neighborhoods when they're completely cut off from water as we repair the water lines. But these are typically 300 gallons. So they would require constant refilling. Yeah, they would probably be on the road. So in a widespread outage, you know, we would probably have to fill them service the neighborhood. Service has been get water. Where is the head station in Honolulu for water? Where would they go to pick up the water? These would probably be from our major pump stations or the reservoirs which can continue to get water refilled into it. So like right near the border water supply headquarters on Baratanya Street, there's the Baratanya pump station at the top of Kapahulu Avenue. There's the Kamuqi pump station and Kalihi. So there's several of these locations. So if my neighborhood's part of that 30%, then I have to we would have challenges. I have to get out and find the truck. Right. How would I know the truck is there? And what would I take with me to the truck? You know, I'd have to have some container. You would have my container, not yours. Right, right. You would have to bring a container along and realize to that that water is really bulky. Yes, exactly. So water about a gallon weighs almost 10 pounds, I think around there. So, you know, unless you're in really good shape, you know, to carry a couple of gallons of water is a challenge for for most people. And the farther a distance that you have to travel, the more difficult it becomes. So that is part of our challenge. And so that's why we preach every hurricane season for two for each household for each resident to take the steps necessary to prepare themselves. At this point, Marie, you probably want to ask Robert what those steps are. Sure. Yeah, in fact, you know, timing wise, I saw an article in the paper, I think Lee Cattledon's column said, you know, if you don't buy water, then you don't have to, you know, try to take it back to the not that you should be taking it back. You know, it's like, come on, you can you can store it. I mean, if you have a hurricane coming, or if you have advanced notice, you can store some but also you want to have a little bit at least stored for events that you can't have several hours advanced notice, you know, so and there's there's not well, there's nothing wrong with with bottled water. Like for that situation, you just you just spoke about it can be supplemented with the water that you get from your taps. So having clean containers, wash them out with a simple bleach solution, just have using your household clocks with some water rinsing out a container. It should be good enough for a short term storage solution. And effectively, you know, the way our water rates are set up today, you can effectively get 1000 gallons of water for $5. That's what it would cost an average residential. Yeah, that's that's regular water, regular rates. Yes. So what about catchment? I mean, is there any point in me having something in my house? I can have solar in my house. That's kind of renewable. What about catchment? That's renewable too, isn't it? Yeah, catchment. We wouldn't necessarily recommend it for consumption. But it could contaminate it. You never know what's in it. And without proper testing, we would never know. But it is extremely helpful, say for for sanitation. So you still need to deal with flushing it, flushing toilets, doing the dishes doing doing wash, simple laundry, that type of thing, that it's very beneficial to that. Then you don't have to give up your bottled water supply to fill your toilet, use that for drinking, taking pills, what have you. Right. What about this? What is the word for it? The bladder? What's the trade name? The water bladder or there's a water bob. Water bob. That's it. Water bob. What is that? How does that work? It's basically a plastic liner that you can use in your bathtub. And it has a fill spout as well as also a dispensing pump as well. So you you put that in your bathtub, you hook connect it to your bathtub spout, and fill it. And when I looked at it, I think if you filled a standard bathtub just to its brim, it's about 60 gallons. And that's all potable. That's all drinkable water because it came out of the out of the spout. Right. And the plastic that that water bob is is food grade plastic. So it's you have to leave it in the tent in the bathtub because it's a rate of 10 pounds per gallon. That'd be 600. It's heavy. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so you're um, so let's say you're worried about a hurricane, you fill that thing up. And then we do after hurricane, you know, hurricane goes away, we all relax. Right. So and that's the difficulty of that one in that the water bob it's a great product. I have not gotten one yet. But it's on my list of things to get your wish. It is. It is. And hopefully Santa will be nice this year. But it's it's marketed as a disposable product. So unfortunately, it's it's really from my understanding, it's difficult because it's a not not it's not a sealed system, but it's just difficult for you to get rid of the water and dry it out properly so that you don't get green stuff growing. Basically. Right. Yeah. Right. So you know, when you're talking about disinfecting things before you put the water in it, I saw some recommendation one capful per gallon. Probably for that's I think to if you were to rinse it out to wash it, you would go with that Hyaba concentration. Yeah, bleach of unscented bleach. Is it capful? I'm like how many ounces is that? Is that like one? I think that's that's a bit heavy. We basically we just recommend one drop per gallon. Oh, okay. Right. And it would it would have a noticeable taste. Okay. Yeah, with the capful per gallon. Yeah. Okay. And that does the same thing as boiling? Um, in the short term, in the short term, and you know, we we put that out as an alternative, because say you're in a situation where you lose power, then a lot of people don't have that chance to they don't have the means to boil water. Okay, let me carry the hypothetical for the scenario, so to speak. More doomsday. Yeah. Okay. So people can get sort of a reality. Sure. So all right. So the the power goes out. You're using those trucks, trying to cover as much territory as you can. And and you have fuel, but you don't have an indefinite supply of fuel. Right. So and you actually have fuel right now today, you have fuel in case we had a hurricane in 10 minutes, you'd have fuel. Okay, you take the trucks out. Ultimately, and I'm just working on logic here, the fuel runs out. No fuel. Right. No fuel, no electricity, no pump, no water. What happens then? Then we rely heavily on those gravity fed systems that I mentioned. It'll be at a reduced pressure for sure. But we would still be able to draw water from our sources. But then it becomes that that is sort of the worst case scenario, where we lose power for basically in indefinite period. And then the the fuel reserves start to dwindle. And even those trucks require fuel. Right. I mean, the trucks, what did you call them those trucks? The trucks with the spigot on it, those trucks. Oh, the water buffaloes. The water buffalo trucks. Right. They require fuel to get where they need to go. Right, right, right. But it's all part and parcel of the whole challenge that we have in emergency planning. So if we're in that scenario as well, we're talking island wide devastation. The roadways may not be clear. Couldn't get there anyway. Debris clearance is a is a is a huge concern. This island has a lot of albezias. You know, they're they're big. All right, down on the road. They're shallow rooted. And people hates them with a passion, I would imagine. And they can they can cause a lot of damage. So that's high on the priority list. As far as, you know, if the roadways are clear, then at least we have a chance to reposition some of our assets where where the water is needed or where the power is needed for the emergency generators. Okay, well, let me let me go one step further than. Okay, so we recover. Okay, okay, from this flood, hurricane, earthquake, tsunami, whatever it is, we recover. And you turn it back on, you have power, you can make the pumps work. And now the electricity and the pumps and everything getting water at the far end, I turn my faucet on. I'm happy. Is that water going to be as clear and clean and pure as ordinarily or might have to going to have to worry about contamination because of the, you know, the disaster? Immediately after the disaster, you know, we would be out there testing all of the sources as quickly as we possibly can. Probably in that under that circumstance, just out of an abundance of caution, we would issue a boil water notice. So we would be advising all residents, through whatever means you can boil your water for two minutes to make sure that we take care of any contaminants that's in the water, until we can get all our full testing done. Once the testing is done, then section by section, area by area on the island, we can let them know that, okay, this particular source is fine to drink straight out of the tap without any type of additional work required. And you know exactly who your customers are on that source. Yes, right. And you know who your customers are on a source that may be contaminated as well. Correct, correct. So you go house to house or? Through whatever means are possible, whatever the means are possible. Remember that radio? Yeah, right, right. Communication is very important. Communication is everything really in a situation like that. Yeah, and that's why we love the MISERT teams on Oahu, the community emergency response teams that are out there. That's like the boots on the ground and these, not only for us, but for I think all the other government agencies as well. You know, they're good community organizations out there and they're well prepared to communicate under those doomsday type of scenarios even. But we would also, we would rely on them as well to give us the necessary feedback out in the community of what's happening. And they could also get word out on our behalf back to their community as well. Now, in the case of electricity, you know, some of it is overground and some of it would be damaged. Some of the, you know, the grid essentially would be damaged in a storm. Do you have the same concern about the border water supply, about the, for example, the, you know, the pumps and the pipes? Could it be that an earthquake, for example, would have some destructive effect on your system? And what do you, how do you know when a pipe is broken? How do you know when you need to take, you know, to repair before you can pump and pass water through it again? It's, it's with water in a lot of situations, it's almost a binary situation to it either works or it doesn't. And when it doesn't work, you know, there's usually some catastrophic type of event, like, like with a main break situation. But we are concerned about those types of disaster situations as well. Earthquakes are probably one of the, it's not something that we fear because there's just no way to predict it. But that could be also devastating because it could damage things like the reservoir tanks themselves. And if those are damaged, that, that severely hapers our ability to deliver water. Because all of our system is gravity fed. We pump, all the pumps do run, they draw water from the ground, but they send it to the tanks. And from their gravity takes effects. And that's how water is delivered to homes and businesses. You can quote me on this one. In order to deliver water, you need to have water. Let me write that down again. Maria, you had something. So one thing we haven't mentioned yet is the recommendation of 14 gallons. It's a gallon per person per day. So and the, and the recommendation is to have a 14 day supply. Okay. So that's where the 14 gallons per person. 14 gallons per person for, for an emergency. And that becomes challenging. Because if you have a family of four, you're talking 56 gallons. So now we're talking about perhaps the water bath. That might be a bathtub full. Yeah. If you're going to envision that. And that's survival. That's basically, that's for emergency survival. Yeah. That doesn't take into account all the other daily activities, I think, that you need, you need to take care of on a normal day-to-day basis. Yeah. And so another thing is, so let's say you are storing some water because you don't know, for example, if, you know, something's going to happen and you want to have some in your, in your home. If you're storing it and you're disinfecting it, you still have to rotate it, right? We recommend, yeah, we recommend that. How long does it last? What is rotation? Well, what we mean by that is, well, let's start with, how long should it last? If you say, if you took the, the precautions that we recommended about adding a bit of Clorox to, to the water, it could last anywhere from two weeks to a month easily without too much difficulty. But because hurricanes, typically, and there's no wood to not, typically, hurricane, you get some advance notice. It could be days, it could be almost a week in advance. So our recommendation is, if you do have water stored and it's been sitting there for a while, use it to water your plants. Take, you know, don't, don't waste it, but, you know, and, but use it, rotate it out. And so when the next event comes, just go ahead and refill it. And that's what we mean by rotation. Yeah. Yeah, don't fill up a bucket. And then six months later, think, think that it's going to be okay. Yeah, you cannot assume it's okay. Yeah, I would recommend it. It's easy. It's inexpensive. Just go ahead and just use it on, use it on your lawn. And we were just talking earlier about bottled water. So we, we wondered if they had expiration dates and it actually turned out it did. Yeah, it's laser attached on the edge. Yeah. Maria, can you, can you figure out a way to wrap this up? Because we're kind of out of town. I'm out of town. We're out of town. Yeah. Okay. And, um, you know, I know you can think of something to sort of put the clinch on this. And also to thank Robert Maria. Yeah, yeah. Well, we hope that the hurricanes that are out there and will be out there don't come to visit. And we hope that this is all just an exercise, you know, in preparedness. But water is essential. So I think we should take advantage of this information and the motivation to go ahead and check that we have some stored on site. And we have plans for how to store more. I had one question about, you know, when you have the instruction to conserve water ahead of time, you know, how far ahead is that two days ahead or two hours ahead? Do I have to feel the wind blowing before I stop using water? And you said it was couple days. Yeah, like with, um, with Lane, we started putting word out two days in advance. So you really meant at that point, don't you? Yeah, because you're trying to top off your reservoir so that the gravity fed system can actually be working without the power, if necessary. Right, right, right. So we're trying to just encourage people to not use water for things that could be deferred a little bit later. So watering your lawns and plants. So it goes for the proposition that being prepared, being ready is everybody's business, not just the utilities or wine electric or the water, water supply. It's all of us. We all have to have in our minds the possibility and the plan. And then we have to be able to implement that intelligently. Yes. Thank you, Robert, Robert Marina. I'm Robert Warner, water supply. Thank you very much. Maria Tomei, thank you so much, you guys. Hello.