By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Police, firefighters and ambulance personnel help a driver
stuck on the H-1 freeway, westbound between the
Pali and School street offramps last night.
The National Weather Service at 2 a.m. canceled a high wind warning for Kauai and Oahu. High wind advisories for Maui, Molokai and Lanai and the Big Island were in effect until 8:40 a.m.
Winds gusting up to 45 mph and wet weather played havoc with traffic and power lines yesterday, causing rush-hour delays and scattered power outages on Oahu.
Small pockets were still without power in Waipahu near Halelehua Street affecting about 12 customers and off Kamehameha Highway in Kaneohe.
Power was restored at about 5:30 a.m. to Kaaawa near Coral Kingdom.
Power to areas in Makakilo and most of Kailua was back on by 1 a.m.
It'll continue to be breezy today but conditions are expected to improve gradually through the weekend, National Weather Service lead forecaster Bob Farrell said. "Sunday should be sunny."
There were major road tie-ups near both tunnels leading to Windward Oahu last night.
A three-car collision on the Kaneohe side forced the closure of Kaneohe-bound lanes of the Wilson Tunnel from 6:25 to 7:10 p.m., when one lane was reopened.
On the Kailua side, a power outage knocked out traffic lights at Castle Junction at 6 p.m., slowing traffic to a near halt.
Also, a fallen tree on Kamehameha Highway near the Pali Golf Course affected traffic flow for nearly 40 minutes until 7:55 p.m.
A pole was reported down on the Kalaheo High School campus.
Hawaiian Electric Co. repair crews, meanwhile, were busy troubleshooting yesterday, mostly in Leeward and Windward Oahu.
Fire companies on the Windward side responded to at least 10 calls by midnight from residents needing help with blown roofs and fallen trees.
Some companies were equipped with roofing paper and chain saws to take care of the smaller debris.
The calls were tapering off early today.
"Most of the trouble occurred in small scattered pockets," Heco spokeswoman Lynne Unemori said.
About 1,160 customers in Waialua were without power from 2:52 p.m. to 3 p.m. while an outage in Kahaluu from 4:35 p.m. to 5:54 p.m. affected 75 customers.