City and state road crews spent the day yesterday clearing debris, cleaning bridges and drains, and digging out from the stormy weekend.

They expect more work today as they prepare for another round of heavy rains this week.

State Transportation Department spokesman Scott Ishikawa said Likelike Highway will be closed in the townbound direction again today and tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. as crews clear a clogged drain above an entrance to the Wilson Tunnel.

City officials sent crews to suck out debris and clean bridges and drains, and they even patched a few potholes, said Tyler Sugihara, assistant chief of the city's division of road maintenance.

Even as they cleaned up from Sunday's storms, officials are bracing for rain, possible thunder, and gusting winds starting tomorrow and lasting through the weekend.

"Right now, there is quite a bit of uncertainty with the situation," said Kevin Kodama, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service. "We're looking for a new storm system moving in (tomorrow), and we're looking for rains, possibly to persist into the weekend. This one looks like it might produce some winds and thunderstorms where it hits hard and blasts through, affecting the entire state at different times."

The storm is expected to hit the western end of the state first and sweep east through the weekend, he said.

O'ahu Civil Defense officials are using the respite to "catch their breath" and prepare for the expected deluge.

"We're not out of it yet," said John Cummings of the O'ahu Civil Defense Agency. "It looks like we did OK (with Sunday's storm), but the weather is going to turn."

Cummings said environmental services technicians were traveling the island yesterday pumping out drains, ditches, yards and homes.

Ishikawa said state transportation crews are using a heavy crane to do the work — which has closed the Wilson Tunnel several times over the past several days — as crews dig out mud, rocks and debris. He said the drain is important because if it fills up, it could push rocks and debris onto the highway.

He said state officials will delay roadwork on the Pali Highway near Waokanaka that had been scheduled to begin this week. Rather than close another Windward commuter route, Ishikawa said, that work will wait until the Likelike work is over.

Ishikawa said he expects the Wilson Tunnel to be open before morning rush hour today. He said state crews were inspecting bridges after the Sunday downpours and getting ready to do more roadwork if the weather allows.

Sugihara said the city made cleaning storm drains, streams and other areas that could block and cause more flooding a priority.

He said the debris runs the gamut from washing machines and other garbage illegally dumped in streams to branches and even plastic bags.

"Because they're watertight, they'll block up the drainage outlets," he said.

Sugihara said people can help by phoning pothole hot lines to tell crews what needs to be fixed first. "We really welcome the public's assistance," he said. "It's really inefficient for us to hunt and search for them."

He said he expected to send more crews out to fill potholes today, with most other clearing already done. "We don't have the staffing to do everything at once, so we have to decide which priority we do first," Sugihara said.

He said city crews have reduced the pothole repair response time from an average of 96 hours to close to 48 hours.

Sunday's rains flooded streets and homes all over the island and cut off power to pockets of Hawaiian Electric Co. customers, said Janet Crawford, a HECO spokeswoman. All HECO customers had power restored by 5 p.m. Sunday, she said.

Water problems with two underground cables in Nanakuli caused 40 customers to lose power yesterday, and a transformer struck by lightning in 'Ewa turned the lights out on another 20. In Wahiawa, two waterlogged transformers cut power to 20 customers, and 30 customers in the Kailua/Olomana area lost power as well.

"Luckily, that's pretty good," said Crawford. "With the number of lightning strikes that we had, we did pretty well."

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com and Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.