Chertoff Says Be Prepared for Hurricane Season

May 23, 2006 — -- New Orleans will start testing new emergency response plans and revamped evacuation procedures beginning today.

The two-day drill starts just 24 hours after forecasters at the National Hurricane Center offered up a hurricane forecast that once again carried two dreadful words: above average.

"That's not good news, and the message is very clear," said Max Mayfield, the center's director. "We need to be prepared."

The hurricane season officially begins June 1, and meteorologists believe the Atlantic has started a decades-long phase of intense hurricane activity, which is increased by warmer waters and weaker winds in the upper atmosphere to knock them down.

The National Hurricane Center says we could see four to six major hurricanes this year, and up to 16 named storms. Experts don't believe 2006 will be as bad as 2005, which saw a record 28 storms, including 15 hurricanes.

Seven of these hurricanes were considered "major," four of which hit the United States. About 12 percent of the U.S. population -- or 34.6 million people -- live in areas affected by hurricanes, about half of them in Florida.

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said that Hurricane Katrina, which caused 1,330 deaths and tens of billions of dollars in damage, served as a test for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Now the department is better prepared for a catastrophic storm. Chertoff said that supplies and communication equipment had been quadrupled and that federal officials had been coordinating with local authorities more effectively.

"We've had the opportunity to look back," Chertoff said. "Obviously, Katrina was an unprecedented storm. So it sets the upper boundary, if you will, of what we might have to fear."

Weather experts are saying that there is a possibility that hurricanes could become strong enough to be classified as a Category 6, but Chertoff said that the problem with Katrina was not the strength of the storm, but the structural issues in New Orleans, specifically the levees.