Kealakehe, Kaū police stations face brief phone outages for upgrades

Telephone service at the Kealakehe Police Station in Kona was temporarily unavailable Tuesday, June 9, from 4 to 6 p.m. for a system upgrade, and the Kaū Police Station in Nāālehu is scheduled to lose phone service June 16 from noon to 2 p.m. Residents with non-emergency matters can use the Hawaii Police Department’s non-emergency line, (808) 935-3311, while emergencies should still go through 911.

The department said the short outages are part of ongoing telephone-system maintenance and repair work affecting police communications on the Big Island in recent years. The brief shutdowns hit two stations that serve major stretches of Kona and Kaū, making it harder for callers to reach station personnel directly during the work windows.

This is not the first time Kealakehe’s public line has had trouble. In March 2026, the department said the station’s public number, (808) 326-4646, was not receiving incoming calls and directed residents to the non-emergency line, (808) 935-3311, while repairs were underway.

Big Island police communications have also been strained by broader infrastructure failures. In July 2022, a Hawaiian Telcom fiber-line break affected telephone and cell service across West Hawaii, including Kona, Kaū and Waikoloa, and temporarily disrupted the public’s ability to call 9-1-1 and police stations in Kona and Kaū.

People looking for department updates are now directed to the Hawaii Police Department’s newer website, launched Nov. 12, 2024, while the older site remains an archive of historical media releases. The repeated outages underscore how dependent emergency access is on a phone network that can still go dark with little notice.