From Makaha to Nanakuli, folks along the Wai'anae Coast continued to dig their way back to normalcy yesterday in the aftermath of one of the most tumultuous three-day periods in memory in the region.

Pockets of people in Nanakuli were still without power, although most of the community had been back on the grid since Thursday. Ma'ili, which had gone longer without electricity than most other locations on the coast, remained a snarl of downed utility poles, dangling power lines and broken tree branches.

Still most of Ma'ili had regained electricity.

Adding to the mess were new heavy winds and stormy weather.

The worst of it began shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday morning when the skies erupted, the winds turned fierce and the lights went dark.

"When that storm hit it came through here like tornado — it ripped tents in half and the telephone poles started cracking and a transformer exploded," recalled Shina Gomes, a resident of Lualualei Beach Park No. 1, also known as "Sewers Beach," which has one of the largest tent populations on the Wai'anae Coast.

"I thought we were all dead, that's how bad it was. People just started running and yelling. We're in survival mode right now."

As Gomes spoke, more than a half-dozen utility poles, along with cables and power lines, stretched across the ground from one end of the beach park to the other, blocking the entrance to the park.

At the far diamond-head end a repair crew was having limited luck trying to work through a downpour.

Yet, even in the driving rain there were what amounted to miracle moments. At 2:25 p.m., a caravan of several vehicles and a large flatbed truck negotiated its way through the trail of orange traffic cones fronting the beach park on Farrington Highway, and came to a halt.

About two dozen people emerged from the vehicles and began pulling large boxes of food, clothing and provisions from the truck and distributing them to a stream of residents that dashed from their tents to the roadside and then bounded back to safety again.

Dean Fewkes, one of the drenched-to-the-bone Good Samaritans, said he was with a group of church workers representing Horizon Christian Fellowship Honolulu. His team passed out some 2,000 pounds of goods, and then went on their way. Before leaving, Fewkes said the rains didn't faze the church workers.

"Satan has his plans," Fewkes said. "God has his."

Elsewhere, people were trying to cope with other aftereffects of the storm. Dan Delmundo, who operates the Ma'ili 76 convenience store and gas station at Ho'okele and Farrington, said the two-day power outage had destroyed the station's computer system.

"We're pumping manually, because we cannot enter it on our computer," said Delmundo, who was nevertheless glad to be in business again. "It's like in the 1930s. We have to go out and pump in the gas."

Worse, said Delmndo, was the fact that with the computer on the fritz, he had no way of doing computerized food stamp transactions, which many residents depend on.

"Those people need to eat, but we don't have any communication with that system. It's very hard for them," he said.

Hawaiian Electric Co. spokesman Darren Pai said that as of 5 p.m. about 800 customers were still without power in isolated pockets across the island. Because of that, and also because stormy weather had returned, Pai said it could take up to two days to get the remaining residents switched on again.

In addition, a new outage was reported about 4 p.m. in Nanakuli affecting about 750 customers. A HECO crew was dispatched.

"I know it's starting to sound like a broken record, but we're asking everyone to be patient," Pai said. "We're working as fast as we can to get everyone's power restored."

Pai had a believer in Patty Teruya, Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board chairwoman, who only Wednesday had lamented that the coast, once again, was "hostage" to unfortunate circumstances.

"It's a tragedy this happened," she said. "But we've got no control over Mother Nature. And I've got to say hats off to HECO. I wish I could cook one big pot of Portuguese bean soup for these guys who were out there 24/7 in the wind and rain, away from their families, to make it work.

"We've got electricity!"

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.