A man named Crane sat behind the counter at Jensen’s Liquor on Saturday, running his hands over a piece of painted plastic.

“It was a pretty sweet sign,” Crane says.

But the signature curved sign that for years hung in front of the mom-and-pop liquor store at 620 W. Ninth St. is gone now, another victim of last week’s storms.

A week after straight-line winds swept away trees and damaged property all over Lawrence, some of the residents hardest hit are still trying to put the pieces of their lives and businesses back together.

Spires missing

At Plymouth Congregational Church, the two spires lost in the storm are obvious in their absence, replaced only by a blue tarp meant to fend off pending rain.

So far, roofers and insurance adjusters have visited, all taking the first steps toward putting the church back together.

“It’ll be a long process of prioritizing,” the Rev. Peter Luckey said.

Luckey said the church should be fine – but it wasn’t out of the clear yet.

This weekend, Luckey will hear from an engineer to see whether the church’s structure was damaged in the storms.

If not, the spires can be replaced. If the church’s foundation or supports were damaged, the process could be more expensive, Luckey said.

But this morning, Luckey will tell his congregation about the good that the storm brought, about one community reaching out to another.

The word came through just after the storms ripped the spires away from the historic church last Sunday. The Community U.C.C. Church in Garden City heard about Lawrence’s plight, and the Rev. Mike Lake asked his congregation to give what they could to help the Lawrence church rebuild.

‘A lot of work to do’

Up and down the blocks of East Lawrence, where the storm damaged many homes and businesses, broken or sawed-off tree limbs still littered a yard here and there even after a week of cleanup.

“There’s still a lot of work to do,” said Parks and Recreation director Fred DeVictor.

DeVictor worked all week with a crew of 200 city employees and contractors that spanned several different departments, trying to get the majority of brush and debris off curbs and out of streets and sidewalks.

The work isn’t complete, he said, as many residents are just now getting the chance to put branches and twigs on the curb for pick up. He said it could take another week to finish the job.

“I imagine Monday is going to be pretty busy,” DeVictor said.

DeVictor wouldn’t estimate the strain the extra work has put on the city’s budget. Between overtime hours and paid contractors, and with no federal assistance on the way, the price tag could cut into other projects and city expenses.

The time spent clearing branches and fixing infrastructure has already cut into his park crew’s time, he said. With spring around the corner, park bathrooms need to be opened, water turned on and pools cleaned and prepared.

All have been put on hold until the storm cleanup is finished.

“We’re behind on those things,” DeVictor said.

Efforts paying off

But the city’s work has paid off around town. Sharilyn Wells couldn’t believe how city workers got all the brush out of her neighborhood behind the Douglas County Law Enforcement Center downtown.

Last Sunday, whole trees leaned against houses. Branches dangled down precariously, but city workers cleared them away.

“They were lying so you would have been afraid to move them,” she said. “I was pretty amazed by that.”

Now all that remains is the damage to homes here. Wells’ home sustained heavy roof damage, and half of her front porch buckled and sunk to the ground.

“We’ve been working at it the whole week,” she said.

So far, roofers have been over to patch one particularly large hole in the roof in preparation for wet weather this weekend.

“We figured it was going to rain,” Wells said.

Close to normal

But the real work hasn’t started yet. Down the street, in the 900 block of Rhode Island, Tyler Craig was working on a house that lost its roof last Sunday.

“She’s coming along,” Craig said between trips to a green Dumpster that sat in the yard.

Craig said that the residents here were only out of the house for a couple of days as crews that the landlord hired hammered the new roof in place. But now things are almost back to normal, he said.

Three houses down, at 932 R.I., things are far from normal. A tree blasted through this house last Sunday morning, and the residents have had to look for help elsewhere.

A truck was backed up to the giant hole in the front wall. A city bill posted on the front door read, “Do not occupy, structure unsafe.”

There are certainly others still looking for assistance a week after the storm. Back at Plymouth Congregational Church, Luckey will try to impart on his congregation the importance of lending a hand to those who need it.

“It’s humbling,” Luckey said. “We really do need each other.”