Underneath tarps in Florida, glimmers of optimism

Mayor Stephen Fabian stands in front of Punta Gorda's hurricane-wrecked City Hall and gazes up at the damaged facade of the 1928 building.

After Charley, the first and most intense of the four major hurricanes this unprecedented season, came ashore here Aug. 13, it seemed certain that City Hall and the equally picturesque courthouse would have to be pulled down. "We thought they'd have to go, the damage was that bad," Mayor Fabian says.

"But we're hopeful now that we can save them," he says, outlining their plan to take off the damaged roofs and rebuild from within. "They're symbols for the city, and to save them would mean so much to everyone."

The salvaging of two small buildings from the tens of thousands destroyed by a hurricane blamed for at least 25 deaths in Florida, and for leaving many thousands homeless, might seem insignificant. Yet it is a symbol of the hope and optimism that many victims of Charley feel now that its 140 m.p.h. winds are a distant, although painful, memory.

What was at first a recovery effort has evolved into the monumental task of rebuilding - one repeated in so many Florida counties where hurricanes Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan left indelible footprints.

As Fabian points out, much has still to be done. A sea of blue tarpaulins still covers damaged roofs from Punta Gorda to Pensacola, on buildings from the flimsiest of mobile homes to millionaires' waterfront mansions. The mayor himself is living in a house with the master bedroom and bathroom damaged beyond repair.

Yet despite the hardships, allegations of abuse of the federal aid system, and a shortage of reconstruction resources likely to extend the rebuilding period well into the second half of the decade, the human spirit is shining through.

"Trying to get back in business as soon as possible is all everybody here wanted to do, and these are merchants who suffered just as badly in their own homes," says Kathy Burnam, marketing director of Fishermen's Village, Punta Gorda's harborside shopping and dining complex that was extensively damaged by Charley.

Much of the center still lacks a roof, but Ms. Burnam says that reopening the shops quickly, and returning some semblance of normalcy to townsfolk, has been essential. All but one of the 40 shops and restaurants was back in business by Nov. 1.

"You can sit and cry or get on and do something about it," says Loreen Zinc, proprietor of the Beneath the Sea shop in Fishermen's Village. The retail complex reopened with plastic sheeting still covering most of a side wall and roof.

"If you'd have said it would take until November to open again, I'd have been devastated. But here we are, and we're still here," she says.

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