A mean twister found its way down to Amityville and Massapequa this week, giving us a taste of the awesome power of Mother Nature on the eve of the first-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf. Fortunately in our case, the event was on a much smaller scale and we lost nothing but time, money and energy to clean up the mess. Lives were thankfully spared.

In New Orleans, however, the work of coming out of that disaster and personal tragedy continues, and despite the nagging headlines that portray the clean-up process there as dismal, our personal observations in that city were quite different.

We saw a short-term plan in action and we saw a long-term plan as well. Most hopeful is the establishment of the independent agency to monitor the clean up and the funds pouring into that city. It is made up of business people, citizens, public officials and experts in all areas of recovery, but most important, it is outside of the jurisdiction of local governments often bogged down by inadequacy, petty rivalries and political pandering.

We saw and heard hope in the stories of many people who still love and want that city to move out of the disaster stronger than before. Some were living in government trailers, and had humorous and heart-wrenching stories to tell about that experience. The trailers, it seems, have become the great equalizer between rich and poor who, in New Orleans, are now sharing similar accommodations.

Certainly, much more needs to be done and in many respects, it needs to be done quicker. But make no mistake about it, recovery is going on and when experienced within the framework of the massive damage we saw, it was awe-inspiring. We are confident it will continue.

On a local level, it's nice to know that we have a response team in place for such disasters, and that last week's twister, though the merest fraction of an event in terms of Hurricane Katrina, provided a good exercise for all first responders as Long Island could surely face a Katrina-like storm at any time.