Floridians Prepare For ‘06 Hurricane Season

June 1. Floridians and most of the east coast don’t need to be reminded of the significance of this date: the start of hurricane season.

After back-to-back years marking some of the most destructive hurricane seasons on record, and with forecasts calling for an active six-month season in 2006, Florida residents are taking their preparations more seriously than ever, according to a story in Business Week.

Home improvement chains reported strong increases over last year in terms of people buying hurricane supplies during Florida’s 12-day tax holiday, which eliminated sales tax on all merchandise as an incentive for state residents to prepare. As owners take precautions to ensure the safety of themselves (as well as their Florida real estate), products ranging from generators to portable TVs to batteries of all sizes are flying off the shelves.

“Everything that the state of Florida put on the tax-free list has been a huge hit with our customers,” said Dan Brown, a Lowe’s district manager for Miami Dade and Broward counties. “Customers, I think, have really wised up over the past two years in Florida. You don’t even have to hand them a list anymore.”

As hurricanes go, 2004 and 2005 were a couple of pretty big wake-up calls. Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Wilma caused mass hysteria and damage throughout the state and the entire Southeast. The region’s disaster relief efforts have been widely criticized and many home loans have ended in foreclosure.

The silver lining is that residents will be better prepared this time around. In previous years, people generally only stocked up on water, food, candles and flashlights, but after last year, the biggest sellers are flashlights, gasoline containers, even generators.

That’s probably a good idea, with an updated forecast from researchers at the University of Colorado calling for 17 named storms this year, of which nine are expected to become hurricanes. Five of those will develop into major hurricanes with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agency have issued similar predictions of 16 named storms, six of them major hurricanes. Gov. Jeb Bush praised the state’s retailers for aggressively marketing the sales-tax holiday this year, raising awareness throughout Florida.

“The amount of publicity given to hurricane season preparation this year is unprecedented,” Bush said. “All of the newspapers and all of the TV stations all across the state have done in-depth stories about how to be prepared, why it’s important to be prepared. It’s kind of heartwarming that everybody realizes how important it is.”

There’s also the matter of preparing financially. Be sure your Florida property insurance premiums are up-to-date and comprehensive. You can’t predict the weather, but you can safeguard your property fiscally as well as physically.