The state is providing  a helicopter at first light Saturday morning so that Hawaiian Electric Company can check power lines on the ridges before turning the power back on, Gov. Linda Lingle said tonight in a telephone news conference shortly before 10 p.m. tonight from the state Civil Defense emergency center at Diamond Head.

The helicopter will be looking for downed power lines that could cause problems as the power is being restored, Lingle said.

“My best estimate at this time is power will not be restored until some time in the morning,” Lingle said. She urged residents to remain calm, stay home and go to sleep.

Power will not be restored in a sequence, not all at once, Lingle said. “It’s not a matter of turning on one switch,” she said.

State Department of Transportation Director Brendan Morioka was overseeing the restoration of power at Honolulu Airport and the Department of Health was monitoring the needs of hospitals. All hospitals were operating on emergency power generators and the state was prepared to send additional fuel for the generators if needed, Lingle said.

The state learned lessons since the Oct. 2006 earthquake that triggered the last island-wide power outage, the governor said. Since then, the state put in emergency power generators at the Honolulu Airport, which are now helping to restore flight status.

“We’re in a much better situation here on Oahu at our main airport,” she said. “The improvements that we put in were necessary.”

Lingle said she was at a private Chabad dinner in Kahala celebrating the end of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights when the power went out.

“We had a lot of candles on the table,” she said.  So when the lights went out, Lingle said they just continued with the dinner.