The Caribbean Braces for Busy Hurricane Season

Small Caribbean and Central American countries have suffered devastation and thousands of deaths from increasingly frequent hurricanes, and forecasters predict another rough season this year for the region and its tourist resorts.

International relief agencies warn poor countries are not prepared to cope with the disasters and say deaths will continue to rise.

A record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season brought 28 tropical storms, 15 of which became full-blown hurricanes.

Cuba´s National Weather Institute predicted this week that there will be an above-average 15 tropical storms this year, and at least nine are expected to become hurricanes.

That´s because water temperatures in the Atlantic-Caribbean basin remain warm and there is no sign of a counteracting El Nino phenomenon in the Pacific, said Cuban forecaster Maritza Ballester. The first storm will form in late June or early July, she predicted, with three arising in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Katrina, which wrecked New Orleans and killed about 1,300 people in August, brought home to Americans a scenario of devastation familiar to inhabitants of the Caribbean and Central America.

Mudslides buried entire villages and floods washed away homes and roads in Central America when Hurricane Stan drenched the region for a week in October. More than 2,000 people died, mainly in Guatemala.

Hurricane Wilma briefly became the most intense Atlantic hurricane ever observed before hovering over Mexico´s Yucatan Peninsula for two days, causing heavy damage to Cancun and Cozumel resorts where tourists were trapped in their hotels.

Haiti, the hemisphere´s poorest country, is by far the most vulnerable. It has been virtually stripped of trees, which are cut down for charcoal, allowing for erosion and devastating flash floods and mudslides.

Two years ago, 3,000 people died in its third-largest city Gonaives when Tropical Storm Jeanne triggered flash floods.

Barren, parched, brown hillsides loom on the outskirts of the port city on Haiti´s west coast. Jeanne´s heavy rains saturated the hills, sending torrents of mud into Gonaives in September 2004. Muddy water reached the roof of the two-story Chachou Hotel in the center of the city.

English-speaking Caribbean nations have decreased hurricane casualties through preparedness and early-warning systems, but the economic impact on their small economies grows larger.