Hurricane!

2004 saw a large number of high energy hurricanes hit the U.S. coast, especially in Florida.

An article from the Christian Science Monitor today on the analysis and impacts of the recent hurricanes.

Last month marked the first time since the beginning of postwar hurricane reconnaissance flights that August generated three major hurricanes in the Atlantic. If the current forecast track for hurricane Ivan holds, it will be the third hurricane to strike Florida in a month.

Yet for all its fury, this season's burst of activity falls well within the bounds of past experience. What's surprising, say experts, is that the US and Florida haven't seen more major storms make landfall over the past few decades.

.... Yet even with improved forecasting tools, the public doesn't always put the information to best use, some researchers say. "We still can't explain why only some people leave and others don't," says Jay Baker, a geographer at Florida State University in Tallahassee who works on emergency-preparedness issues. Understanding that motivation may help officials devise education programs to encourage more people to heed calls for evacuation.

That response may have less to do with knowing the difference between a hurricane watch and a hurricane warning than it does with perceptions of individual risk, he says - a perception that can include misconceptions about how far a person needs to travel to avoid the storm. The solution can be as simple as more accurate hazard maps .....