COLORADO SPRINGS - The nation watched in fascination and horror in 2005 as Hurricane Katrina danced around the Gulf Coast before slamming into it, in the process drowning most of New Orleans and parts of Mississippi. While we were glued to the tube, artists in that region were scrambling to save their lives, their homes and, no surprise, their work.

All of that - images of the devastation, federal fumbles and a halting recovery - seems as new as today when viewing exhibitions that bowed last weekend at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center's FAC Modern.

The taut "Katrina: Catastrophe and Catharsis" was organized by New Orleans gallery owner Arthur Roger, with input from friend and fine arts center president and CEO Michael De Marsche. Planning began early, said De Marsche, who recalls contacting Roger while the storm was still ongoing to invite him to Colorado to talk about a show. (Which eventually included work by De Marsche's wife, photographer Karen De Marsche.)

The more loosely presented, but perhaps more emotionally direct, "Katrina Exposed: A Photographic Reckoning" was organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art with work culled from many sources.

In the first show, Roger approached 18 respected artists - among them a quite prescient John Scott - about work they had made in response to the hurricane. While Scott already had two beautiful woodblock prints that addressed the potential destruction of a major storm, Roger found numerous other examples of work that runs the gamut from visceral reaction to intellectual release.

In short, "Catastrophe and Catharsis" is a prime example of the natural inclination of artists to create, even as the world seems to blow apart.

Dawn Dedeaux, for instance, fled to Mississippi, where she saw suddenly building-free spaces covered with shattered glass; her response was to take nearly two tons of that material and make a grid showing nine versions of the hurricane's configuration. Jacqueline Bishop went to Houston, but then returned to complete a 40-foot-long wall assemblage that incorporates dozens of baby shoes and found objects into a wavering line that is both watermark and proclamation of life. Willie Birch headed inland, but later created figures in an installation linked by a fiber cord that turns into big blue "pools" that appear ready to subsume a mother and child.

Paintings in the exhibition, overall, address the human condition, including the standout, David Bates' The Storm. But Luis Cruz Azaceta borrows from the state's culinary star - gumbo - to depict the event as a swirl of ingredients, in the charcoal and acrylic on canvas Bowl. Mitchell Gaudet incorporates blown and cast glass into pieces that depict a tragedy that still sparkles with hope.

The FAC Modern is the fine arts center's visual arts venue until a 48,000-square-foot expansion opens Aug. 2. It's not a huge place, meaning that some of the work feels squeezed into place. But staffers found a way to hang almost 40 pieces - plus 150-plus photos in a wide variety of frames and sizes - in three galleries and a cafe. In short, it's pretty dense.

But it also has moments of pure power, tempered by revelation, sadness and the opportunity to see art that carries the personality of an American city unlike any other.

Katrina: Catastrophe and Catharsis

• What: Works by New Orleans artists in response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; with "Katrina Exposed: A Photographic Reckoning," more than 150 images of the city after the storm

• Where and when: The FAC Modern of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 121 S. Tejon St., Suite 121; through April 29

• Information: 1-719-634-5583; csfineartscenter.org

The Dikeou Collection

• What: Contemporary work on loan from Devon Dikeou and Pany Dikeou

• Where and when: Colorado Building, 1615 California St., Suite 515; ongoing, open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays, and by appointment

• What's new: Devon Dikeou unveiled work from the collection in fall 2003, and those installations and individual pieces still are on view. But to augment the giant, inflated rubber rabbits (Momoyo Torimitsu's Somehow I Don't Feel Comfortable), a piece from Vik Muniz's "chocolate series," and Paul Ramirez Jonas' round array of musical water bottles, Dikeou has added work from seven new artists extending through many new rooms in this warren of former offices.

They range from bold photographs by Lisa Kereszi to Tracy Nakayama's provocative paintings of reworked porn to Jonathan Horowitz's grid tracking how actress Julia Roberts rates when it comes to ranking in movie titles over the years.

Through the end of March, this sprawling art facility houses a show organized - though not too coherently - by the Invisible Museum, "Unwrapping the Wing."

• Plus: The collection also sponsors readings and other events. At 7 p.m. Thursday, poets Elizabeth Robinson and Maureen Owen will read, as will poet Jake Adam York at 7 p.m. April 12. Artist and curator Marina Graves will give a reading in May.

• Information: 303-623-3001; dikeoucollection.org