THE EAST COAST Hurricane threat is worse this year

The pace of development is still steady in vulnerable places.
NETTLES ISLAND, Fla. (AP) -- Helen Wagenseller's second-story dining room is so close to the water's edge, she became seasick the first time she peered out the window.
Her home sits among 1,600 others on this tiny island created from the spoils of a dredging project and protected only by a shallow, 41/2-mile perimeter sea wall. In the 35 years since it was developed, the island has escaped with only glancing blows from hurricanes, a fitting streak for what some see as a charmed spot.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find any place like it," says Wagenseller's husband, Bruce. "It's our little bit of paradise."
But lesser storms have already pushed the water within 2 inches of the top of the wall and residents who live in this eclectic mix of traditional two-stories and mobile homes know it wouldn't take much more to send a surge spilling over.
"It's kind of a sitting duck," admits Blaine Ellingson, the neighborhood chiropractor who wrote a book about the island 45 miles north of West Palm Beach. "I wonder how many times you can roll the dice and be missed."
More than 50 million people now live along the nation's hurricane-prone coastlines -- nearly double the number since 1970 -- and most are more than willing to trade the storm threat and skyrocketing insurance rates for postcard-perfect vistas.
Odds are against them
But with every year that passes without a devastating storm, the odds increase that the luck will someday run out.
This year, noted hurricane forecaster Bill Gray predicted a 71 percent chance of an intense hurricane hitting the U.S. coastline, something that hasn't happened since Hurricane Andrew smashed into South Florida in 1992 with 165-mph winds -- killing 43 people and causing $31 billion in damage.
"This can't keep going. Climatology will eventually right itself," Gray warned. "We're going to see hurricane damage like you've never seen it."
His 2004 forecast calls for nearly 50 percent more storms and hurricanes than the typical season, with 14 storms, eight of them hurricanes, and three of those powerful.
It also deems the East Coast and the Florida peninsula as most vulnerable, with a 52 percent chance of getting hit. The Gulf Coast, from the Florida Panhandle to Brownsville, Texas, has a slightly better chance of being spared but still faces a 40 percent probability of seeing a hurricane make landfall.
Despite the lingering threat, the pace of development in vulnerable places continues unabated.
Even in areas covered by the federal Coastal Barrier Resources Act -- which discourages development by withholding money for flood insurance, road repair and disaster relief -- the sounds of sawing and hammering echo across the dunes.
Zone received funds
About two thirds of the town of North Topsail Beach, N.C. -- including the town hall -- is in the so-called "cobra" zone. Yet when Hurricane Fran destroyed 350 homes there eight years ago, the federal government approved $6 million to rebuild damaged infrastructure.
Joe Minor, a retired civil engineering professor from Houston, says new homes built to current international code standards should fare well during most big storms. But he says the codes are only as good as their enforcement, and enforcement tends to be better in places that have experienced a major storm -- like Miami with Hurricane Andrew and Charleston, S.C., with Hugo.
"Outside of those two places, there hasn't been a hurricane in 20 years -- a severe hurricane," says Minor, now a private consultant on wind-resistant construction. "And that means Houston. That means New Orleans. That means Mobile, Pensacola. That means Tampa, Jacksonville."