Researchers at England’s University College London have devised a computer model that uses data from midsummer winds to predict the likelihood of hurricanes striking the United States later in the season.

The model was created by sci Benfield Hazard Research Centre. The center is sponsored by Benfield, a London-based reinsurance company that is one of the world’s largest.

The new model could get a real workout right from the start. Forecasters think a ten-year trend of active hurricane seasons will continue this summer.

Folks in the communities along the U.S. Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida are getting prepared for their yearly dose of dread.

Hurricane season enters June 1, and residents of coastal areas will switch on the evening news each night wondering if there will be a small swirl off the coast of Africa that could grow a few weeks later into their worst nightmare.

This year, Gulf Coast residents may want to omit the weather report and pray instead.If a hurricane batters the region in 2010, it could slit into some communities already hanging by a thread.The massive oil polished from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig catastrophe is threatening the livelihood of shrimpers, fishermen and businesses along the hurricane-exposed coast in Louisiana and Alabama.

Major health related problems, such as water-born diseases, environmental pollution as chemicals and sewage mix in the cities and spill into the oceans are going to add to the problems.

Major oil production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico were totally damaged, leading to further a world rise in oil prices.

As massive reconstruction starts, there is also criticism of how that is happening. The British paper, the Guardian reports that “firms known for their close links with the White House are winning work.”

And of course there are many environmental issues to consider. For a long time, scientists have bothered that climate changes may spawn more fierce hurricanes. This has of course entered dissertation again in the wake of Katrina, but skeptics are quick to note that the number of hurricanes in a given season seems to be cyclical. Yet, a BBC weather reporter measured that the intensity of hurricanes seems to be increasing, even if the frequency may show cyclical patterns. The US position on climate change has of course been to resist international efforts for fear of losing economic advantages.

The tremendous destruction caused by Atlantic tropical cyclones, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, caused a substantial upsurge in interest in the subject of global warming by news media and the wider public, and concerns that global climatic change may have played a significant role in those events.

Time Magazine, for instance, published an article titled, “Is Global Warming Fueling Katrina?”-however, the article itself addressed hurricanes in general, rather than Katrina specifically, and was inconclusive

Soon after the hurricane, former Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan wrote an op-ed piece for the Globe titled, “Katrina’s Real Name“, declaring that the hurricane’s “real name is global warming.” Gelbspan went on to assert:

Though Katrina began as a relatively small hurricane that glanced off south Florida, it was supercharged with an extraordinary intensity by the blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Rebuilding of towns took years, and some areas were not yet restored. The bay bridges were reconstructed taller and stronger, as had been done around Pensacola in the years following Hurricane Ivan. Because all three Emergency Command Centers in the Mississippi coastal counties had been flooded over 30 feet above sea level, the rules for command-center elevation were changed to relocate to even higher ground.

The casino-gambling regulations were changed to allow casinos to be built on land in taller buildings, no longer forcing the usage of massive floating casino barges near a city, which could again become battering rams along second and third-story levels of nearby hotels. Celebrities who had visited New Orleans earlier came to understand the massive devastation that occurred along the Gulf Coast cities.

The US Army Corps of Engineers developed plans to reconstruct the protective barrier islands that had been washed out to sea along the coastal areas. Detailed reports were prepared describing how people had survived by swimming to taller buildings or trees, and noting that those too old or unable to swim did not survive. Many residents moved away and never returned back. Medical studies attempted to valuate the indirect deaths caused by people losing their homes or local medical support.

The tremendous destruction caused by Atlantic tropical cyclones, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, caused a substantial upsurge in interest in the field of global warming. Time Magazine, for instance, published an article titled, “Is Global Warming Fueling Katrina?” — However, the article itself addressed hurricanes in a general manner, rather than Katrina specifically, and was inconclusive.

Soon after the Katrina hit, former Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan wrote an op-ed piece for the Globe titled, “Katrina’s Real Name”, declaring that the hurricane’s “real name is global warming.” Gelbspan asserted: “Although Katrina began as a relatively small hurricane that glanced off south Florida, it was supercharged with extraordinary intensity by the relatively blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.”

However Gelbspan did not single out Katrina from other recent storms in that regard; in the article he went on to attribute other major weather events over the preceding year to global warming, including a blizzard in Los Angeles, high winds in Scandinavia, wildfires in Spain, and a drought centered in Missouri.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Health and Human Services issued a joint statement warning people to limit contact with floodwater because of potentially elevated levels of contamination associated with raw sewage and other hazardous substances.

This is because the floodwater might also restrain pesticides and petrochemical byproducts. Once it was pumped into the lake, however, it would become highly diluted.Even after it was completely pumped, the contaminated water still wouldn’t be out of sight of New Orleans, and some environmental experts are worried.

Authorities checked nuclear plants thoroughly and other potential sources of radioactive substances and so far no contamination has been detected.

Heart Like Water by Joshua Clark is so far the most admired of all Hurricane Katrina books, and the only memoir from a resident who never left New Orleans, one that contains hundreds of Hurricane Katrina survivor stories.

In the growing constellation of Katrina stories, Joshua Clark’s masterful fiction shines to the brightest. The Apocalypse destroyed a city and ripped to shreds lives, but the legibility of its deep inner impact had to wait for this book, which is a love story.

Clark’s book is our Love in a Time of Cholera, yet, even more than Marquez novel, it is immediate and wrenching and true, while its rhythms, like Marquez’, are nothing short of majestic. Josh Clark has written the great non-fiction New Orleans novel, a book that’s here to stay.” –Andrei Codrescu.

Heart Like Water author Joshua Clark also newly wrote a very personal feature for Consumer Affairs on Louisiana’s disappearing wetlands called “The End of the World”.