Hurricane season defies forecasts

Updated: November 27, 2007 - 8:08 PM

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The latest: Despite alarming predictions, the United States came through a second straight hurricane season nearly unscathed, raising fears among emergency planners they will be fighting public apathy and overconfidence when they warn people to prepare for next year.

End of the season: Friday marks the official close of the Atlantic season, so unless a storm forms in the next few days, only one hurricane -- and a minor one at that -- will have hit the United States during the June-to-November period. The preliminary total for the season: 14 named storms -- five of them hurricanes, two of them major.

Will apathy set in? "Now that we've gone a couple of years without major hurricanes will the public be more apathetic before the next hurricane season? The answer is absolutely," said Craig Fugate, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. "The further we get away from these types of events ... the more complacent people become."

For example: insurance: Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, said the industry saw about a 20 percent increase in the number of policies sold in Gulf Coast states in the two years after Katrina. But about one in five new policies is not being renewed, he said.

ASSOCIATED PRESS