Should you lock in Hawaii hotels? Rising costs likely with anticipated bankruptcy.
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50 thoughts on “Maui Fires: Upcoming Bankruptcy Spikes Visitor Costs To All Islands Except Kauai”
Home » Blog » Hawaii Travel News » Maui Fires: Upcoming Bankruptcy Spikes Visitor Costs To All Islands Except Kauai
BOE,
What happened to the little check box that requested we receive related posts?
And, I still believe we should be able to indicate disagreement with a post. It makes the site more powerful.
Visiting Waikiki Sep 14-30. If you get over that way, send me an email – we can meet for lunch, I’m buying.
Mahalo
Hi Rod.
Mahalo for that help and almost 500 other comments. We see that comment subscription had an issue and we just fixed it. The thumbs down feature was removed by intention to reduce contentious comments. And lastly, thanks, and will do.
Aloha.
The Maui county government should sue themselves. And step down in shame. They did nothing to address wildfire concerns after the 2018 wildfire disaster.
The beginning of this disaster goes back about 175 years when
the water that made Lahaina a lush tropical paradise was diverted
to the sugar cane plantations. 100 hundred years later the sugar cane was replaced with non native grasses which were known to be very flammable. So perhaps you should sue these landowners, HECO and the county.
Great idea!
I’m afraid that will be up to the people. And, everyone actually responsible will band together to make the folks doubt themselves – it’s the way of politicians.
I wouldn’t be surprised at a HECO bankruptcy, but nobody today knows for sure that it will happen. Today I received an email from HECO telling its side of the story, and HECO *may* have some valid points. Attorneys avoid predicting the outcome of litigation.
I own two west Maui properties and had scheduled installation of a solar power system with a tesla battery at my townhome in Puamana, at the south end of Lahaina, for September 14-20. The fire destroyed about 40% of the Puamana community, and my solar system is now on indefinite hold. One of the reasons I planned to get the tesla battery is to avoid paying 44 cents per KWH to HECO for power at night when my panels won’t produce power. There are some weak “buyback” programs that could allow me to sell some excess power back to HECO / the grid, but HECO pays maybe 13 Cents per KHW and apparently the program doesn’t work with tesla batteries. What I think we need is a state or even federal law requiring power companies to buy power not used by owners of solar systems for the same rate they sell the power. Then the grid could substitute for a battery and the percentage of solar produced power would be maximized. If the government can give electric companies a monopoly on grid power, it seems to me that the government can force those companies to make smaller profits so that we can hopefully save this planet and move away from transmitting huge volumes of power through uninsulated power wires on poles.
Your idea of buy back of electric power by the electric companies is totally unrealistic you must be from the government.
The whole point of having a public utility commission is to protect the public from the incompetence of mgt thats for shareholders to deal with as they get a vote. So shouldnt be that way. Reality is its going to cost several million dlrs to bury the power lines vs just go to fuel cells and pipe and or truck the green hydrogen in. The later will have much less capex so will cost less all around to the point that a rate reduction would be possible.
Consider burying power lines underground maybe? Solves a lot of problems, but a a price.
I believe that your news should focus on the legitimacy and probability of HECO’s potential bankruptcy based on Maui County’s alleged claim. There is sufficient validity to claims that the County had failed to responsibility prevent the disastrous effects of the fire.
Two sides of the story would be appreciated. You worry about the rising cost of travel while we worry about the Government taking care of its people!
In California, even if you don’t live in an area impacted by wildfires, PG & E passes the costs on to all their consumers by other “small” increases that our CPUC approves for PGE every year. I imagine the Hawaiian utility would end up doing the same; especially if they have shareholders to answer to. It’s unfortunate the customers pay the price for a company’s mismanagement. The last thing Maui residents need is another financial burden.