Belk’s biggest fear, he said this morning, is that “people tend to react to their conception of history rather than history itself.”

“It’s been 53 years since we’ve been hit by a major hurricane,” he said of southern New England. “The last hurricane we had was Hurricane Bob back in 1991, but Bob was not a major hurricane. Gloria, back in 1985, was not a major hurricane. … It’s been 53 years. We have a lot of people who live in southern New England – Rhode Island, southeastern Massachusetts – who have not lived through a major hurricane. There’s no experience base there for people to use in making good decisions.”

Now is the time to prepare for hurricanes, Belk said. Sure, the vast majority of tropical storms and hurricane activity typically develops during the peak of the season – from August to October. But it’s too late to start preparing when the storm is battering toward us, Belk said.

“We really need to prepare, and it’s tough to do when the sun is out and the birds are chirping, but this is the best time to do it so you can get everything done to protect yourself,” he said.

If people wait to board up their windows as the hurricane is approaching, local hardware stores just will not have the plywood and other supplies needed for New England’s population base, stressed this meteorologist who works with emergency management directors to educate them about hurricanes.

Belk has three rules of thumb for people in southern New England to keep in mind about the hurricane season:

1. Pay attention to any tropical system with a name in the Bahamas – and decide what you’ll do while the storm is still in the Bahamas because it could be here in 24 hours.
“And the reason for that is every hurricane that’s ever hit us has either passed through or very close to the Bahamas.”

2. When a storm is forecast to arrive at a certain time, speed up that time by at least six hours and plan to have all your outdoor preparation work completed by then.
“It’s better to be done early than to be done too late.”

3. This one’s simple. Run from the water. Hide from the wind.
“If you’re going to get coastal flooding, you need to get out of that area that’s going to flood. You don’t need to evacuate to Canada; you just need to get out of a more vulnerable area into a structure that can withstand the wind. The ocean is the worlds’ most efficient battering ram. A cubic meter of water literally weighs a ton.”

While an average hurricane season features approximately 11 named storms, NOAA is predicting we could have 13 to 17 named storms this year. Those are storms with sustained winds between 39 and 73 miles per hour. Seven to 10 of those named storms could be hurricanes (with sustained winds of at least 74 miles per hour), and three to five of those could be major hurricanes (with sustained winds exceeding 110 miles per hour), according to predictions.