Dawn Hiltner’s family is enjoying cold showers and trying to match clothes in the dark.

Her Langhorne Manor neighborhood is one of a few pockets in Lower Bucks County still without electricity since Saturday after Hurricane Irene roared through the East Coast over the weekend.

She is trying to stay positive, she said. She did even while getting her son ready for his first day of school earlier this week.

“Fortunately, we got our hands on some generators at Lowe’s on Monday, so we’re running our fridge from that,” Hiltner said.“We’re trying to help elderly neighbors and neighbors who are alone, sharing our power with them.”

Most people’s lights are back on after hours and even days of no electricity after Irene. But more than 6,500 customers were still waiting for power at midafternoon Wednesday.

PECO Energy has restored power to more than 495,000 customers affected by the storm in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

“We expect service to be restored to most customers by Wednesday night,” PECO spokeswoman Cathy Engel Menendez said. A few customers may have to wait until this weekend.

There’s a reason why it seems to take forever for some people to get their power back.

PECO prioritizes repairing equipment damage that kills power to tens of thousands of customers. Customers on smaller damaged service lines are helped next, said Engel Menendez. Finally, damage sites that affect a handful of affected customers are handled last. Each job can take six to 10 hours, she said.

Damage to a transformer on top of a utility pole caused the problem in Langhorne Manor and affected 32 customers, said Engel Menendez.

In Penndel, Mayor Bob Winkler said all power to the borough had been restored by late Tuesday night.

At one point, more than 600 homes and business suffered outages, and 77 people were forced to evacuate apartment buildings.

About 191 homes experienced some form of water damage, he added.

The recently opened Bottom Dollar food store was likely hit hardest, according to Winkler. He said that flooding cost the market about $90,000 in damage.

Officials will be seeking relief funds from the state and expect a visit from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the area soon.

In Bristol Borough, power has been entirely restored, said emergency management coordinator Merle Winslow.

In Middletown, one place that emerged relatively unscathed from the hurricane’s effects was the Oxford Valley Mall. The mall never lost power, said Manager Jim Boyle.

“We were pretty fortunate,” he said. “Other than a couple of minor roof leaks, we got through with no real incidents.”

Though power is coming back online, the cleanup of storm-ravaged areas will continue for weeks, say some people working near flooded waterways.

In Bensalem, volunteers will be working for weeks to clean buildings and restore torn up grounds at Adventureland Day Camp, said Suzanne DeVicaris, the camp’s art director. The Neshaminy Creek topped its banks, flooding the camp.

“We suffered major damage, but in some ways I feel upbeat, because we were prepared. This is our third hurricane flood,” she said.

The first was Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Floyd followed in 1999, and was more destructive than Irene, she said.

This time, camp staff spent three or four days moving everything they could to higher ground before the hurricane hit.

“Still, everything’s covered in horrible mud. Water was completely covering our site, and buildings were under 4 to 5 feet of rushing water. Things were floating in the buildings. When we came back, desks and refrigerators were in different places. Trees were knocked down, and swimming pools got muddy. Our stage was destroyed,” said DeVicaris.

She hopes to open up the camp at least by Oct. 23 for a free autumn festival themed “I survived Hurricane Irene.”

In Northampton, the Langhorne Players lost power in the middle of a play Saturday night at the Spring Garden Mill, said Rob Norman, the play’s director and treasurer of the theater company.

Located next to the Neshaminy Creek in Tyler State Park, the mill was saturated with 3 inches of water before the storm ended. Now the lobby and theater floor are caked with mud. A large gash marks where the gush of water moved through the gravel parking lot.

“It’s a mess. We were lucky in that water didn’t touch the stage or the seats ... but our handicapped ramp was picked up in one piece and dumped in the woods,” Norman said. The situation is tough, because the company was already facing the cost of a recent roof replacement, he said.

While Irene was far milder than the 2 feet of water Hurricane Floyd deposited in the mill in 1999, the effect is similar, because it temporarily shut down theater operation, said Liza Fisher Norman, the Langhorne Players’ marketing director. The play,“Rabbit Hole,” will be postponed.

The company hopes to host a fundraiser event Sept. 23 and 24 at the Spring Garden Mill. More information is on the website, atwww.langhorneplayers.org.