Five weeks after Tropical Storm Lee, its impact is still being felt.

Residents displaced from their homes still are waiting to return, infrastructure that was seriously damaged still hasn't been returned to form and people still are in need of help.

The good news is that many have stepped forward to offer assistance.

Following is a look at how municipalities, organizations and others are faring in the wake of Lee.

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At Franklin Terrace, a public-housing development owned by Lancaster City Housing Authority, the Conestoga River flooded 28 of the development's 124 units, according to Beth Detz, director of public housing.

As the waters rose, the housing authority evacuated 35 families; seven were able to return immediately because their homes did not flood.  Flooding was limited to the basements of six other properties, and those residents were able to return four days later.

But 22 families have been displaced since the storm. Most are staying at the Hotel Brunswick and the rest with family while the housing authority repairs the damages, Detz said.

"We have to replace drywall, kitchen cabinets, furnaces, water heaters, interior doors and, of course, all the remediation with floodwater to make sure there's no mold, things like that," Detz said. Stoves and refrigerators also have to be replaced.

The cost from the damages — and of housing the tenants at the hotel — is estimated at $600,000, she said.

The houses are covered by flood insurance up to $14,000 each, or a possible maximum of $392,000, but the housing authority could be on the hook for the rest. It plans to apply to the state and federal governments to see what assistance might be available, Detz said.

"We have capital funds, but what that money is normally used for is general improvements" across the authority's 565 housing units, Detz said. The capital budget has $706,000.

The authority had planned to update kitchens, furnaces and roofs and make units more accessible to people with disabilities, but Detz said those improvements have been put on hold because of the damage.

"We are looking at the last family getting in by Nov. 4. ... The renovations are moving along pretty quickly now," she said.

Detz said the authority was thankful for help from Eastern Mennonite Messianic Mission and School District of Lancaster. Mission volunteers helped residents get rid of destroyed items, and the school district and volunteers have helped with meals, counseling, clothing assistance, laundry assistance and transportation, Detz said.

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The flooding brought an outpouring of help from across the county.

"People still need help. Even though some are back in their homes, there's a lot who aren't, and even if they are back in their homes, there's a lot that's still needed," Joell Gingrich Ketcham, who founded Love From Lancaster County, said.

Initially started as a Facebook group to help Tuscaloosa, Ala., tornado victims, Ketcham was able to direct resources to flood victims in the Manheim and Marietta areas by setting up at the farm show building in Manheim.  She recently registered Love From Lancaster County as a nonprofit and is reopening today at Rapho Business Park.

Carol Rainbow, 29, of Manheim, said that she, her husband and their 4-year-old son spent a week in a hotel after the flood, but it got too expensive.

They then tried to live in her son's bedroom on the second floor of their home. But with two cats and all the belongings they could salvage from the first floor, it was just too cramped.

And the odor.

"The smells were pretty bad with the mold and different things starting to grow," she said.

Ketcham, whom she'd gotten to know after turning to Love From Lancaster County for a small refrigerator, put her in touch with an older man who had been considering renting his house because he didn't need all the space.

The night they met, Rainbow said, he gave them keys.

"It's such a blessing," she said.

She also was able to find some replacement toys for her son, whose toy box was carried off by floodwaters.

Among her finds was a three-wheeler and Hungry Hungry Hippos games — two items her son had been asking about for a couple of months.

 "She's been a blessing to a lot of people," she said of Ketcham.

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Robert Behling, Manheim's manager, said the community "is very thankful for the help it's been offered from all directions and sources. It's just very much appreciated."

Behling said he knows some residents are still out of their homes, though he didn't have a number.

"I do know people in town are getting rental assistance from (the Federal Emergency Management Agency)," he said.

The borough also is grappling with infrastructure damage.

"We've had damage to roads, to bridges, major, major damage to our wastewater treatment plant," he said. The plant is performing basic treatment.

But putting a number on the damage to municipal property would be, at best, a guess that Behling wasn't prepared to make.

"We're going to have to go through and retrieve that information from billing records and proposals from contractors and best estimates of what it's going to cost to do this and do that," he said.

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Steve Bailey, Marietta's emergency management coordinator, estimates that about a dozen residents are still out of their homes.

He said he's not certain all the damage is known.

"In my mind, we may be seeing long-term damage to houses that we're not seeing at this point," he said. As buildings dry out, they may warp or crack.

Since the 1800s, he said, the National Weather Service had documented 36 severe floods in the borough.

Agnes was the most severe, followed by flooding in 1936, an 1889 flood and then Lee. And there were two other floods this year that made the list, he said: April's flooding ranked 16th and March's flooding ranked 22nd.

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Randy Gockley, Lancaster County's emergency management coordinator, put a rough estimate of damage in the county at more than $30 million.

More than 2,740 Lancaster County residents have registered claims with FEMA for damage from Lee.

According to FEMA, 407 people had visited the disaster-relief center at 2270 Erin Court as of Friday. The center will continue to remain open, but will be closed Sundays, said Patricia Whitt, a FEMA public information officer. Hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Nearly 80,000 Pennsylvanians have registered with FEMA, and the agency had registered $107.4 million in disaster assistance statewide as of Friday.

Deadline for registering with FEMA is Nov. 14, Whitt said. If a claim has been turned down, Whitt advises the person to appeal.

She also advises everyone to fill out all application paperwork, including for Small Business Administration loans.

Dennis Hackler, an SBA spokesman, said the administration lends to homeowners and renters as well as businesses.

Already, Hackler said, the SBA has issued more than $16.4 million in low-interest home loans in Pennsylvania. Home loans can be as low as 2.5 percent and business loans as low as 4 percent, both for as long as 30 years.

But of the more than 23,000 loan applications issued in Pennsylvania, the SBA has gotten only a little more than 2,000 back.

"We need to urge people to return their loan applications" by Nov. 14, Hackler said.

dnephin@lnpnews.com