The warm seas and favorable winds that spawned nine Atlantic hurricanes last year are still in place, and government experts warned yesterday that the 2005 hurricane season could be just as bad.
"Forecaster confidence that this will be an active hurricane season is very high," said Conrad C. Lautenbacher, administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Experts put the chance of a normal or below-normal storm season at only 30 percent.
That should be enough to persuade millions of Americans along the vulnerable Atlantic and Gulf coasts to prepare - especially in Florida, where four storms in six weeks last year killed 152 people, destroyed 27,000 homes and caused $45 billion in property damage.
But most of us in coastal regions from Texas to Maine are still dangerously ill-informed and unprepared, according to a Mason Dixon poll of 1,100 adults in those states.
The survey last month found that 89 percent of those who took a 20-question "hurricane safety test" flunked the exam, according to the poll's sponsors - a coalition led by the Salvation Army and the National Hurricane Center.
Worse, one in four residents said they would make no special storm preparations - even after storm watches and warnings are issued for their communities.
"It is alarming that so many people feel invulnerable and plan to take no steps at all to protect themselves and their property," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, in a prepared statement.
The center predicts that 12 to 15 storms this season will reach tropical-storm force, with sustained winds of at least 39 mph. That will earn them names.
The 2004 season also produced 15 named storms, five more than in an "average" year.
Government forecasters expect seven to nine of this year's tropical storms will grow into hurricanes, with sustained winds of at least 74 mph. Last year there were nine hurricanes, three more than in a normal season. Florida was pounded by hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.
Three to five of this season's hurricanes are expected to reach "major" proportions, with so-called Category 3 winds of 111 mph or more. That compares with six last year, a total that was three times the norm.
"We can't predict this far in advance how many will strike land," Lautenbacher said. But given the active season, "be prepared for two or three of these to make landfall."
