Hotels step up during blackout

HONOLULU – When the lights went out in Hawaii's tourist district, the power generators kicked in.

All hotel power generators in Waikiki functioned properly during Friday night's island-wide power outage, a vast improvement from Honolulu's last blackout, when some visitors were left in the dark, said Hawaii Tourism Liaison Marsha Weinert on Sunday.

Following an earthquake two years ago, tourists in some high-rise hotels had to climb countless stairs to reach their rooms without any lights.

"The visitors were calm. They didn't have a lot of complaints," Weinert said. "The last time around, some of the generators didn't work, but now they're making a point of starting them up on a regular basis and maintaining them well."

Hawaii officials have been carefully guarding the state's reputation as a premier vacation getaway as fewer people are traveling due to the global economic slowdown.

Gov. Linda Lingle said Saturday she was worried the blackout would generate negative publicity for Hawaii among national media following President-elect Barack Obama during his holiday vacation on the island. The bad press didn't materialize, she said.

"We did a lot better from the earthquake to today," said Deputy Adjutant General Gary Ishikawa, who oversaw the state's emergency response to the outage.

Cars clogged Waikiki during the power failure because traffic lights went out, but most tourists remained calm, Weinert said.

Many hotels posted bulletin boards or dry erase boards in their lobbies to keep their guests informed about when electricity was expected to return, she said.

About 7.3 million people visited Hawaii last year.

Electricity was restored to most of the island by Saturday morning, but pockets of Oahu residents were still powerless Sunday.

Airline flights have been operating as normal since Saturday morning, said Brennon Morioka, director for the state Department of Transportation. At least a dozen flights at Honolulu International Airport were canceled during the blackout.

Hawaiian Electric Co. is investigating the exact cause of the widespread outage, which occurred during heavy storms.