Rick Jervis, USA TODAY, talked to many Louisiana residents, who suffered through hurricanes in the past.
“Terri Broussard knows when it’s hurricane season: Calls for refills of nerve-calming meds start piling up at the doctor’s office where she works in this bayou community.
Vernon Bourgeois, sheriff of Terrebonne Parish, starts attending more emergency planning meetings.Connie Townsend hears it in the customer chatter at her cafe.

The North Atlantic hurricane season begins Monday. And few places are more aware of that than this small fishing community about 70 miles southwest of New Orleans. Chauvin (pronounced sho-VAN) has been hit six times in six years by storms that peeled off roofs and flooded homes.

Chauvin typifies the communities throughout the USA that have become increasingly sensitized to hurricanes and the chaos they bring.

“We hope the good Lord spares us this year and lets us breathe a little,” says Townsend, owner of Sportsman’s Paradise Restaurant & Motel, which has flooded 13 times since 1974.

This year should be slightly less busy than last year, when 16 named storms formed in the Atlantic, eight of which were hurricanes and nine of which made landfall, says Jack Beven, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami. This year, the hurricane center predicts nine to 14 named storms, up to seven of which could be hurricanes. The first storm of the season will be named Ana.

Meteorologists and emergency planners are urging residents, particularly those in vulnerable coastal communities, to be ready. Nearly 36 million Americans – 12% of the population – live in areas threatened by Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Louisiana officials have been preparing for a repeat of last year’s mass evacuation when Hurricane Gustav hit its coast and Hurricane Ike swung nearby. With the catastrophic images of Hurricane Katrina still fresh in their minds, state officials evacuated 2 million residents from southern Louisiana that summer, the largest mobilization in state history.”

Full story in USA Today.