Busy Hurricane Season Seen

A new hurricane season arrives June 1 and, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Acosta, forecasters see another active one, with 13 named storms, and seven hurricanes among them.

Some experts warn the country may be stuck in a menacing pattern.

"I see rather ominous conditions for the next 15-20 years, as along as we stay in this active cycle," says Dr. William Gray, a Colorado State University hurricane watcher.

The prediction comes even as people who live in weather-worn Florida continue cleaning up after last year.

"I don't have a home," laments Pensacola beach business owner Jan Scruggs. "That's being demolished tomorrow. I don't have power in my business, and I'm not just the only person. There's a great deal of people on the island who's in my situation."

They were called "The Big Four of '04": Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, the quartet of powerful hurricanes that ripped through Florida, killing 130 people and leaving $22 billion in damage.

But, Acosta points out, even as memories of last hurricane season are fresh in Floridians' minds, there are signs that residents in the nation's stormier states aren't prepared for this year.

A Mason-Dixon poll of coastal residents finds one in four don't plan to do anything in anticipation of upcoming storms, and almost half don't have a disaster plan.

Scruggs is still picking up the life that was ruined in Ivan's rampage, and can't bear the thought of another round of weather misery: "You can take destruction and devastation for only so long and, at some point in time, you just become flat-out despaired about it."

If there's any bit of good news from last hurricane season, it's that doctors in Florida expect a small baby boom after The Big Four of '04. They say there's no mystery as to what many people do when they're stuck at home with no power.