Busy hurricane season seen, FEMA vows to be ready

Residents on a Florida beach shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the area. The head of the National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday a busy Atlantic hurricane season was likely this year, which the federal government's chief emergency official vowed to be ready for.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday a busy Atlantic hurricane season was likely this year, which the federal government's chief emergency official vowed to be ready for.

Speaking at the annual National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, which is still reeling from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, hurricane center director Bill Proenza said signs pointed to a stronger year for storms than in 2006 when only five hurricanes formed in the six-month season that starts on June 1.

"It's still playing out as to how that forecast is going to be put together but at the same time I think the trend is definitely toward more active at this point," he said.

The main factor is the absence this year of the "El Nino" effect, a warm-water phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean that suppresses hurricane formation in the Atlantic, he said.

Last year, El Nino developed in August, truncating what experts had predicted would be a hurricane-filled 2006 season.

Proenza said the National Hurricane Center would issue its official, more definitive, forecast for 2007 in the third week in May.

"There are many factors playing into what that forecast may be, and I would ask your indulgence to wait with us as we analyze all of those factors," he said.

His comments came a day after the closely watched prediction of Colorado State University hurricane forecaster William Gray and his team, who said they expected 17 tropical storms, nine of which would become hurricanes, in a very active season.

Proenza spoke at a hotel near the New Orleans Convention Center where thousands of stranded refugees took shelter in the chaotic days after Katrina swamped New Orleans on August 29, 2005.

They were without food and supplies for days as a government rescue effort led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency floundered under the direction of then-Director Michael Brown.

'NEW FEMA'

His replacement, David Paulison, told the conference, which is aimed at improving storm preparedness, that he headed a "new FEMA" in which emergency experts had replaced political appointees and was better equipped for a major disaster.

"We had to make some serious changes about how this organization operated," he said. "We're going to be much more pro-active, we're going to be much more nimble."

Paulison said FEMA had done such things as store supplies to feed a million people for a week and put together a disaster communications system similar to that used by local law enforcement and emergency personnel, which should improve coordination and response.

While preparing for the next storm, FEMA is trying to help thousands of people still recovering from Katrina, which caused $80 billion in damage and killed more than 1,300 people.

New Orleans still has less than half its pre-storm population of 480,000 and thousands of homes are still damaged and deserted.

Paulison said there were still nearly 90,000 families in Louisiana and Mississippi living in FEMA-provided trailers as another hurricane season approaches. The trailers are neither pleasant to live in nor safe in a storm, he said.

"We want to get them out as quickly as we can," Paulison said. "We're going to work with the states, the local communities and local agencies to find some decent housing for these people and not have them in those travel trailers much longer, hopefully."