Storm season of '98 called devastating

Six of the named storms - including the season's monsters Georges and Mitch - affected the continental United States and caused millions in damage.

The season, which started June 1, winds up today after racking up the deadliest toll in more than 200 years.

And more of the same is possible next year, said pioneering hurricane forecaster William Gray at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo.

"We are going to see the return of some of these types of storms," Gray said. "People have to face up to it. The insurance industry has a major problem."

AP PHOTO Key West, Fla. residents Brian Goss, George Wallace and Michael Mooney battle 90 mph winds along Houseboat Row in Key West, Fla., in September. The three sought shelter behind a hotel as Hurricane Georges forced people out of area.

Gray, who underestimated this season's activity, said the last four years have been the most active ever for hurricanes in the Atlantic basin. He expects even more hurricanes in 1999.

With the gradual fading of the latest cycle of the El Niño phenomenon, which tends to suppress Atlantic hurricanes, 1998 saw nine hurricanes and five tropical storms. In September, there were four hurricanes at once - Georges, Ivan, Jeanne, and Karl - for the first time since 1893.

The Pacific hurricane season, which also ends today, as about average with 13 named storms and nine hurricanes. Howard was the strongest with 150 mph sustained wind. Only Isis reached land, and then only after weakening to tropical storm force.

The atlantic season's last gasp was Tropical Storm Nicole, which formed last week and stayed out at sea.

But it was really Mitch that provided the season's climax.

After forming south of Jamaica on Oct. 22, Mitch erupted into a Category 5 storm with sustained wind blowing at 180 mph and gusts estimated at more than 200 mph, the fourth strongest Caribbean hurricane this century.

Then it stalled over Honduras and Nicaragua with torrents of rain. Its death toll from floods, storm surge and mudslides will probably never be known but is estimated at more than 10,000.

"We have a fear in th community about illnesses from the dead - there are still so many," Cristobal Gradis, a community leader in the hard-hit village of Tololar, Honduras, said earlier this month.

"There's some they wanted to burn, but they didn't burn well. They are stacked on top of the ground. The number is uncountable."

Mitch's death toll would match Fifi, which hit Honduras in 1974, as the third-deadliest Atlantic hurricane.

11-30-98