[Times art: Rossie Newson]
Here are some of the stories Floridians are telling in the aftermath of the terror attacks on the United States.
Bolstering his own and others' faith
Watching the old black-and-white television in his church office, the Rev. Kevin Francis Donlon from St. Mary's Episcopal Church saw the attack unfold. Church employees huddled around the grainy set, which was propped up on a footrest.
Hatred's broad black brush
Hours after the twin towers collapsed, a group of strangers working at the Tampa port noticed Taiseer Jadallah's complexion.
Facing the flames
The day after the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks, St. Petersburg fire Capt. Mike Zamparelli and several other men working the B shift at the city's Master Station were finishing lunch. And watching CNN.
Nightmare assails the dream
My sister Brook calls me the morning after the attack. She is a doctor's wife who has just finished a term as president of the Greenwich, Conn., Junior League. She has raised two daughters in this fancy suburb, a place where daddies -- and some mommies -- commute to noisy New York City in the morning and come back home at night. Our dad commuted like this for years.
Torn between joy and sorrow
BROOKSVILLE -- A year after their 19-year-old daughter, Danielle, was killed by a drunk driver, Stanton and Lawilla Werner expected some closure Tuesday with the sentencing of the driver. Heading into circuit court, however, the Hernando couple got an extra dose of anxiety.
Upheaval takes many guises
Secretary Van Lawrence sat at her desk in a St. Petersburg law office Tuesday morning. Her boss, a lawyer, was angry again.
A spirit stronger than steel
PALM HARBOR -- The morning after the attack, Orazio Cali went to his garage and pulled out old construction documents, newspaper clippings and a welding mask.
Jet lag alters fate's course
TAMPA -- Jack Belt was preparing to teach a theater class at the University of South Florida when a colleague told him a plane had hit the World Trade Center -- where Belt's 38-year-old son, Chris, works.
One leader meets another
Years from now, when Gwendolyn Rigell's grandchildren ask where she was when terrorists dispatched suicidal pilots to attack New York and Washington, she will have a short answer: "I was with the president."
A mad dash
For a St. Petersburg family, everything was fine. Then it wasn't. Then it was. Then . . .
Unreeling horror in real time
Editor's note: Kristy Andersen is a Tampa filmmaker who was in New York City working on a documentary. The following is an e-mail sent Tuesday morning to her husband, St. Petersburg Times Tampa city editor Tom Scherberger.
A message from a surrealist
I volunteer as a docent at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. I was scheduled to give a tour of the museum on the day after I had seen television broadcasts of the devastation. Hearing the commentator describe the scene as surreal, I wondered if I could use Dali's artwork in some way to help cope with my anger and sadness.
