Even as Florida struggled to recover from a one-two hurricane punch, another monster storm slammed into its Panhandle and Alabama's Gulf Coast on Sept. 16, adding more wind and rain-induced damage that extended up the East Coast. But abating winds, receding floods and the beginning of cleanup, damage assessment and reconstruction still didn't address major concerns for those in the country's most hurricane-prone regions. Predictions of more frequent big storms hitting the U.S. in the next decades could challenge existing construction techniques, building codes and evacuation procedures. They may also prompt new calls to curb coastal building.
"We have been giving these warnings since 1996," says Stanley B. Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane research division in Miami. "In many areas, they have flat-out ignored the hurricane problem." Click here to view chart