"I tried to call the office real quick and couldn't get through," added Burgess.  He said they clear roads and assist police with everything from rockslides to car crashes, but, on this day, HPD couldn't readily get a hold of them for any road incidents, until they figure out a way to channel their calls through the Department of Transportation.

"We know the impact was significant," said Hawaiian Telcom Communications Director Scott Simon.

Hawaiian Telcom owns the main damaged lines.

Cable, cell and phone service stopped or was seriously hampered for large sections of West Oahu and Kauai, along with a still unknown number of customers statewide.

"It was a long stretch of fiber optic cable that was damaged pretty severely by the fire, so we'll have our crews out there to replace that section and there's painstaking splicing work that has to happen," said Simon.

The list kept growing on Tuesday.  Oahu satellite city halls were affected.  Most Kauai county offices, including police dispatch, were down.

Oceanic said it restored service to 15,000 customers Tuesday afternoon, but told its customers to expect slower service for several hours.

Hawaiian Telcom said 10,000 customers were hit, but KITV's newsroom had been getting calls and emails from areas supposedly not affected that afternoon.

Hawaiian Telcom had hoped to restore service to most of its customers by late Tuesday evening.