Hurricane Center

IF A TREE falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound? I think I know the answer to that oldie now.There's always someone there. Nothing can happen anywhere on earth today without being on television. No tree can fall, nor sparrow, unobserved, unheard.This great insight came to me while I was watching The Weather Channel the past three days. Hurricane Emily's slow, ominous progress up the Eastern Seaboard was photographed and reproduced hour-by-hour and mile-by-mile in almost intimate detail.

NAPLES, Fla. -- Hurricane Wilma threatened to wreak havoc across a wide swath of the state as it sped toward landfall early today, showing no signs of the weakening that forecasters had hoped for. The sprawling but speedy storm packed winds of Category 3 strength, heavy rains and a substantial storm surge that could reach a devastating 17 feet. Early this morning, the National Hurricane Center said Wilma's maximum sustained winds had picked up to 115 mph, or Category 3. Some further strengthening could occur before landfall this morning, they said.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras -- Hurricane Felix came ashore on Nicaragua's remote Miskito Coast early yesterday as a Category 5 storm, damaging about 5,000 homes in the region before moving west toward the heart of this country of 7 million people, officials said. Less than 12 hours later and more than 1,600 miles away in the Pacific, a second and much weaker hurricane, Henriette, struck the resort city of San Jose del Cabo on the southern tip of Baja California. The center of Henriette's eye reached the Baja mainland yesterday afternoon about six miles east of San Jose del Cabo's downtown.

Hurricane Edouard's approach is likely to kick up dangerous surf, high tides and coastal flooding at the beaches this Labor Day weekend. The National Weather Service has begun to urge the expected crowds of holiday boaters and beachgoers to be careful.Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center also said yesterday that chances were growing that the storm would lose its steering currents in the coming days and become "extremely unpredictable.""Since it can do almost anything, we could have the whole eastern seaboard under the gun from a big hurricane, with tons of people at beaches," said meteorologist Mike Hopkins.

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.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Immense and dangerous Hurricane Dean slammed into Jamaica's southern shore yesterday evening, ripping roofs from buildings, flattening trees and flooding coastal areas. Although there were no early reports of deaths, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said she was "very concerned" about the storm's impact, especially about the eastern parish of St. Thomas, with which the national disaster preparedness office lost contact. The hurricane, the most powerful Caribbean storm this season, remained on a course that could take it to Mexico's busiest tourist zone, the Yucatan Peninsula, by late today or early tomorrow.

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. - Don't say the "I" word around here. These folks don't want to hear it. They are too weary and devastated to think and talk about Hurricane Ivan, but as they rebuild their city, that's exactly what they're doing. "If Ivan comes, I'll be through," said Tim Humphrey, whose home and boat were damaged by Hurricane Charley. "I'll pack my stuff in that little blue car. I ain't coming back." For more than a decade, this precariously located peninsular state had avoided a direct hit from a hugely destructive hurricane.

One of my predecessors on The Sun's copy desk, Bob Grover, once briskly called for a halt to "silly pointless hair-splitting debates. " It was futile, of course; copy editors live for silly pointless hair-splitting debates. The late storm the weather service* called "Sandy" provides the occasion for just such a debate. Sandy started out, as such storms do, as a tropical depression, freshening into a tropical storm and ultimately taking on the status of hurricane. It was as Hurricane Sandy roaring through the Caribbean and heading for the East Coast of the United States that it came into the news.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Hurricane Dennis pounded Cuba yesterday with 135 mph winds, killing at least 10 people, as it barreled northwest toward the Florida Keys and the Gulf Coast. Tens of thousands of tourists and residents fled Key West and the Panhandle, as Floridians who endured four hurricanes last year braced for one of the mightiest storms ever to strike so early. "Everybody's just so worn out," said Kris Lalumiere, a 57-year-old retiree who was buying extra dog food at a grocery store in Gulf Breeze, near Pensacola.

Hurricane Felix drew lazy circles in the Atlantic about 250 miles off Cape Hatteras yesterday, coyly biding its time as exasperated storm-watchers puzzled over its next move."