document: People caught by Hurricane Hugo last year might disagree , but forecasters here say the deadly storm may have had a positive side effect _ it got the public 's attention . And one forecaster says hurricane seasons may be getting worse . Hugo , which caused an unprecedented $ 10 billion in damage , killed 28 people in the Lesser Antilles islands and an additional 29 in South Carolina . But it would have been much more deadly if it had hit almost anywhere else , says Bob Sheets , director of the National Hurricane Center . At the advent of the Atlantic hurricane season , which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 , Sheets and other hurricane experts are using Hugo 's example to get the attention of complacent coastal residents who 've never experienced such fury . `` We 'll take advantage of the fact that there was a Hugo last year and raise people 's awareness , '' said Sheets . `` The consequences of not being prepared are too great . '' Early warnings about Hugo last September allowed 350,000 people to evacuate safely , and in South Carolina the worst of the hurricane struck the Francis Marion National Forest between Charleston and Myrtle Beach , Sheets said . It heavily damaged the fishing village of McClellanville and several small rural communities , but the population there is sparse . If Hugo had struck a major coastal population center , the destruction would have been greater than most Americans have ever seen , according to computer simulations known as SLOSH models , for Sea , Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes . With SLOSH , forecasters can predict the height of the storm surge _ the mass of water piled up by the storm that is a hurricane 's most destructive component _ anywhere along the U.S. coast by punching in a storm 's speed , size and intensity , Sheets said . `` The population density in South Carolina is a lot different from the Florida coast , New Jersey or Galveston , Texas , '' Sheets said . `` Compare that situation to the Miami-through-Palm Beach area _ all of Dade , Broward and Palm Beach counties would have been ... destroyed . '' Hugo was the worst hurricane to strike the southeastern U.S. coast since Betsy hit the Florida Keys in 1965 , killing 74 before it went on to Missisippi and Louisiana . Since then , the population of areas such as south Florida has ballooned and most residents have never directly experienced a hurricane . According to one of the nation 's leading hurricane experts , Hugo may have been the first in a new era of killer storms . `` No one knows for sure , but the odds are , Florida and the East Coast are going to get it , '' William Gray , professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University , told a national conference of weather experts this month . Gray came to this conclusion after his usually accurate predictions for hurricane activity were off the mark last year . He had figured the 1989 season would be relatively mild , with only four hurricanes ; instead , seven hurricanes and four tropical storms killed a total of 84 people . `` He blew it pretty bad , '' Sheets said . `` But then he looked at the rainfall over Africa , and found an amazing correlation between rainfall there and hurricane activity over Florida . '' Gray realized the 30-year drought in Africa 's Sahel region corresponds almost exactly to the years when no major hurricanes have struck the southeastern coast . `` Whether one causes the other is uncertain . They both may reflect larger-scale events . But the Sahel is now getting up to near-normal rainfall , '' Sheets said . Gray plans to release his predictions for 1990 on June 5 . Tropical storms have been recorded in the Atlantic in every month except April , but are rare outside the June 1 to Nov. 30 season . Last week , a preseason tropical depression brought heavy rain to Cuba . A tropical depression becomes a tropical storm and is given a name if its sustained winds reach 39 mph ; it becomes a hurricane if winds reach 74 mph . The names for Atlantic hurricanes and tropical storms this year are : Arthur , Bertha , Cesar , Diana , Edouard , Fran , Gustav , Hortense , Isidore , Josephine , Klaus , Lili , Marco , Nana , Omar , Paloma , Rene , Sally , Teddy , Vicky and Wilfred .
extractive_keyphrases: hurricane hugo deadly storm atlantic hurricane season damage south carolina forecasters population density william gray
abstractive_keyphrases: southeastern u.s. coast