The Mean Season

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 4, 2001 / 6:36 PM EDT / CBS

This year Florida already has struggled with too many natural disasters - drought, fires and a threat to its famed citrus groves.

CBS News Anchor Dan Rather reports that as the hurricane season begins, the state finds Mother Nature bearing down with more bad news, posing perhaps catastrophic consequences for Florida's major industries: tourism and agriculture.

"The mean season here in Florida starts right around the beginning of June and it does include hurricanes, it does include tornadoes, water spouts, lightning," says Jim Lushine of the National Weather Service. "Florida is number one in a lot of weather categories and they are all somewhat hazardous."

Hurricanes are the greatest natural disaster of them all. Despite tougher building codes and advancements in building materials to protect against the storms, Floridians continue to place themselves in harm's way.

"More and more people are moving to the coastal counties everyday. We continue to populate the coastline," worries Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Service.

And worse, according to the Red Cross, only half the residents in the vulnerable coastal areas have even thought of an evacuation plan.

"I think it's a matter of time before we have a major hurricane hit a metropolitan area and that will result in a major disaster," says Mayfield.

Even though forecasts call for an average hurricane season this year, nature follows no form. An intense storm, one with winds up to 130 miles per hour, strikes Florida once every nine years. The last was Andrew in 1992 -- nine years ago.

"And then of course the lightning and tornadoes that occur on the outskirts of hurricanes can also be very hazardous," notes Lushine.

Fires that were touched off by lightning have already burned a quarter of a million acres this year. Forestry officials fear even more fires before hurricane rains offer any relief to this drought stricken state. And when the wind and rains do come, they may do no good for what Florida is famous for - its citrus industry.

So work crews are racing against time to eradicate a deadly citrus canker spread by wind and rain.

If tropical storms with their strong wind and rain move the bacteria north to what's called the heart of "big citrus." Oranges and grapefruits -- a $9 billion industry -- could be lost. An industry lost not only to disease, but to farmers waiting south of the border, ready to fill the slack.

"Are we gonna come back after this is over, if it is ever over?" asks Carlos Bekardi, University of Florida Agricultural Services. "I don't believe, I don't believe its gonna happen. I think that's why I say we lost the industry here."

In Florida you don't have to be a weatherman to know that whichever way the winds blows during this mean season, it will be an ill wind.