A key Hilo storage tank ran empty overnight, prompting officials to issue a water restriction for downtown and South Hilo and forcing the temporary closure of three Hilo public schools.<\/p>\n
The Hawaii County Department of Water Supply said the Piihonua #3 tank near Carvalho Park unexpectedly drained late Monday or early today, affecting customers across South Hilo.<\/p>\n
The water restriction, which requires customers in downtown and South Hilo to reduce water use by at least 25%, took effect immediately and will remain in place until further notice as crews investigate the cause and work to refill the tank.<\/p>\n
The water shortage also forced the closure of three nearby public schools, the Hawaii Department of Education said.<\/p>\n
Hilo High School, Hilo Union Elementary School and Hilo Intermediate School are closed today because they do not have enough running water to safely operate.<\/p>\n
The department said it is coordinating with county water officials and facilities crews to restore service as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
Don’t miss out on what’s happening!<\/p>\n
Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It’s FREE!<\/p>\n
School officials are notifying families and staff about the closures.<\/p>\n
Residents with questions can contact DWS at (808) 961-8050 during business hours or email dws@hawaiidws.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A key Hilo storage tank ran empty overnight, prompting officials to issue a water restriction for downtown and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[526,192,25390,79],"class_list":["post-598742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-hawaii-island","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}