Today, on April 21st at 8:40 AM near Moanalua High School’s M Building a loud bang was heard. The loud bang was identified as the “main transformer,” according to Vice Principal, Mr. Honda. As a result of this, power went out and many restrooms were unusable. Classroom lights flickered and sparked, restrooms pitch black, and toilets didn’t flush. Many students and staff felt the effects of this outage.
According to an online website, Daelin, the main transformer is “a high-capacity, high-voltage device (66 kV and above, 10 MVA+) essential for power stations and substations. It steps up generated voltage for efficient long-distance transmission or steps it down for distribution. They use electromagnetic induction, with primary and secondary coils wound around a shared core, to transfer energy while changing voltage.” In other words, a main transformer is a big machine that changes how strong electricity is so it can travel safely and be used in homes and buildings.
Those working in “Menemart” (an afterschool snack shop run by Moanalua High School’s DECA club members) seemed to feel the consequences more than others. “I’m a little nervous because we have thousands of dollars in stock in the freezer and refrigerator. That’ll go bad if the power outage continues for a while,” Menemart and business teacher, Mrs. Yonamine expressed. Senior Pagna Eckles added, “[Menemart’s stock] is worth maybe, I’d say, a thousand to a couple thousand dollars worth of frozen and refrigerated goods.”
Mrs. Tomimbang, Human Anatomy and Physiology and Biology teacher, provided insight into the issue for her during 1st period, “Because we rely so heavily on technology, we had presentations that we were gonna do this morning. We can’t do that if we have our tech not working. It kind of stalls our education for us. [It’s] a little hard to come up with a back up plan on the seat of our pants.” Senior Emma Calvan, worried, also commented, “I don’t know what to think about this at all. I’m not sure what to do or where to go.”
Mr. Zavala, a media teacher, explained, “We’re a video class, so we can’t do anything.” Junior Airi Chang, who was in Mr. Zavala’s class during the outage added, “This power outage is really [an inconvenience] because my first period is media and it went out during the start of class. There was no WiFi to use so we couldn’t get things like music for our videos.” Lino Yamamoto and Cameryn Kimura in agreement added, “We have been sitting in a hot dark classroom for an hour straight and we’ve learned nothing. The bathrooms were down too and the lights were off.”
10-15 minutes later, the fire truck arrived and L building staircases, both left and right, going down towards Q building were blocked off with yellow “FIRE LINE DO NOT CROSS” tape. Teachers who had a period 1 prep and without a classroom full of students to monitor assisted in directing students away from the situation at hand. If students needed to use the restroom they were told to go to the gym, the only restroom besides the student center that had had flushing toilets and power.
Shortly after the 9:45 recess bell rang, students were instructed to go back and wait in their 1st period classroom during the usual allotted recess time. While some were aware of the situation, other students were prepared to grab their breakfast from the cafeteria. Head cafeteria staff, Adaline Leehong commented, “We were putting [the food] away because we weren’t sure. So it’s crazy. We were ready to serve the students then everybody had to go back. It was a little chaotic.” Many students who expected to grab breakfast were turned away and told to go back to class. When asked to comment on what he was currently doing during the incident Security Guard, Brandon Higa, replied “[We’re just] trying to chase all these kids down and send them back to class.”
During the hour long wait, students and staff awaited answers from administrators while they assessed the issue. The issue needed superintendent approval in order to release students. Hawaiian Electric Company arrived on campus at roughly 10:05 AM to check and fix damage. At around 10:42 AM administrators released students who rode the bus. The following message was sent out to parents at 10:47 AM, “MoHS Ohana: Due to an unexpected loss in power and water we are initiating an early dismissal today, April 21, 2026. School phones are not working.” Then, shortly after the school released the rest of the students.
As of 7:50 PM this evening, Principal Martin sent notice to teachers and staff, “School will open tomorrow, 4/22/26, as usual. We’ll follow the C4 day schedule as planned for tomorrow. All bathrooms will be open and operational.”
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