Andrew got our attention, but even though it reduced much of Dade County to crinkled metal and splintered wood, the storm fizzled out by the time it passed over Southwest Florida. Besides, that was 14 years ago, and many of today's residents weren't living here then. But in 2004, hurricanes started sweeping through Florida again-Frances, Jeanne, Ivan and Charley, which flattened much of Charlotte County, and last year, Dennis and Wilma, which came ashore just south of Naples.

At first they seemed like a novelty, something to shake our heads over and even make dark jokes about; "Can you believe it," we'd say, "here we go again!"

But if anyone was still laughing, Katrina put an end to that, obliterating a major American city overnight. Almost a year later, hundreds of miles of debris still litter the Gulf Coast, tens of thousands of homes are rotting on their foundations, and for all the brave talk, most of the victims are still suffering from problems that seem insoluble.

Suddenly, hurricanes have gone from an occasional worry to a grim way of life. Our blissfully quiet summers and falls have turned into long, anxious vigils, and forecasters are predicting a flurry of more storms-and more monster storms-over the next two decades. If they're right, how will that affect Southwest Florida? Will years of hurricanes destroy our homes, economy and way of life?

Since 1851, when hurricane record keeping began, Florida has seen most of the nation's hurricane action. No other state even comes close. Of the 277 hurricanes that have hit the U.S. coastline, 112 hit Florida. Of the 96 major hurricanes (a Category 3, 4 or 5) to batter the United States, 37 barreled into Florida.

The Galveston, Texas, hurricane of 1900 was the most murderous ever, killing 8,000. But Florida's 1928 hurricane killed 2,500 near Lake Okeechobee, and a 1935 hurricane killed 408 in the Florida Keys. And until Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed $80 billion worth of property, Florida had the three most damaging hurricanes: $26.5 billion in damages for Hurricane Andrew, $15 billion for Charley and $14.2 billion for Ivan in 2004. (Southwest Florida has been hit several times in recent history, most notably in 1960, by Hurricane Donna, which caused $300 million in damage, or about $20 billion in today's dollars, to the Naples-Fort Myers area, and by an unnamed storm that hit Sarasota in 1944. That storm did $63 million in destruction, or close to $25 billion in today's dollars.)

"One big reason why we're seeing these huge amounts of damage is that we're seeing massive population growth along the coastal areas," says Chris Landsea, science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. And Southwest Florida is especially vulnerable to the most damaging element of a hurricane-storm surge, he says. It was Katrina's surge rather than the winds that swept away entire towns along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, and that region was much more sparsely populated than Southwest Florida, home to millions of people and one of the fastest-growing areas in the country.

Experts agree a period of increased hurricane activity began in 1995. No one is sure why hurricanes go through varying cycles of activity, but changes in ocean salinity, currents and temperatures may play a role. And many scientists believe that global warming is feeding the growth of storms, heating the oceans all over the planet enough to turn ordinary storms into monsters. Whatever the causes, for the next 20 years or so, roughly three major hurricanes a year should form in the Atlantic basin, compared with one and a half major hurricanes for the 25- to 30-year period before that, says Phil Klotzbach, a research associate at Colorado State University, which does an annual hurricane forecast.

And some years, of course, will be more active than the average, possibly as active as 2005, which delivered a fury of firsts: the first time 27 named storms formed during the season, the first time 15 grew into hurricanes, the first time four major hurricanes hit the United States, and the first time three Category 5 hurricanes formed in a single season.

For 2006, Colorado State University is predicting 17 named storms and nine hurricanes, five of them major-

or about twice as much activity as the average year. To compare, 2004 was also about twice the average, and 2005 was three times more active than the average.

But not every year will be like the last two. "You're likely to see El Niño [a disturbance in tropical Pacific weather patterns that usually leads to fewer storms in the Atlantic] in the next five to six years, and that will reduce activity," Klotzbach says.