Rural areas of Kauaʻi — such as the western part of the North Shore and Kōkeʻe — may not get their power back for months following damage from Hurricane Lowell, the head of the Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative told a public gathering on Friday.

More than 100 people filled the Princeville Center to listen to KIUC CEO David Bissell’s update on restoring electricity to the North Shore. Bissell said Princeville may see its electricity restored in a week at best, and most communities on the island will have their power back in weeks. But he added it will be hard to provide a more exact timeline because crews don’t yet know the state of transmission lines.

The practical effect of the outages was not lost on local residents, worried about food spoiling in their refrigerators, loss of air conditioning, dirty clothes and other challenges.

“I think our biggest challenge in the next two weeks will be laundry facilities,” said Maylette Garces, a Princeville resident and executive director of the nonprofit North Shore Give.

For Megan Wong, a Wainiha resident, not having power, communications or running water has forced her family to create new systems for what would normally be simple tasks.

Every morning, she and her kids go to the Wainiha river to get water for their toilet. They also grab water for kūpuna who live nearby. Dishes are also washed in the river.

She tells her kids to be mindful of what they wear each day, to minimize doing laundry. To minimize messes to clean up, she’s decided to only cook outside on the camp stove.

“It consumes your day and the way you function and live,” she said.

It won’t be cheap bringing electricity back for everyone. Bissell told Civil Beat he doesn’t yet have a cost estimate of the damage to KIUC’s lines, substations and other equipment. But he said the utility is expecting to have 100 contract and mutual aid employees on the island starting next week.

“Those guys are going to essentially be working 16-hour days, seven days a week,” he said.

He added that as a cooperative, the utility can have up to 75% of its costs covered by FEMA, so long as Kauaʻi receives a presidential declaration for Hurricane Lowell’s impacts. Gov. Josh Green made that request on Wednesday.

As Hurricane Lowell spun off of Kauaʻi’s coast, wind gusts topped 90 mph at a National Weather Service station at Puʻu Lua in Kauaʻi’s western reaches. The winds knocked down power lines and equipment over a wide area, leaving nearly everyone on the island without power on Tuesday.

The utility has since made significant progress restoring electricity. On Thursday, KIUC reported it had brought back power to 66% of its members, compared to 32% from the day before.

On Friday, Gov. Josh Green announced that approximately 72% of the island’s power had been restored, with KIUC bringing back 12 of 15 transmission lines across the island.