Last year's hurricane season was the busiest in more than 100 years for South Carolina, with about $146 million in damage. Only 1989, when Hurricane Hugo devastated the state with almost $10 billion in damage, was worse.

But state emergency officials say the state is prepared for what's expected to be another busy year, even after being so busy last year.

"I think that helped to prepare us for following seasons," says Jon Boettcher, hurricane program director for the state Emergency Management Division. "We refined some operations that we do, particularly a reversal plan that we did execute in Horry County."

That was last year before Hurricane Charley. For the first time ever, the state reversed the inbound lanes of Highway 501 going into Myrtle Beach, so that all lanes could carry traffic away from the coast. The evacuation went smoothly and much faster than 1999's evacuation before Hurricane Floyd.

Emergency Management director Ron Osborne says, "Are we prepared? As best we can, yes we are, but anytime you have a catastrophic hurricane, it'll overwhelm a state."

He says something they learned during last year's busy season was how many tornadoes a hurricane can spawn. With seven storms affecting the state, there were at least 76 tornadoes statewide.

"It's something that we need to watch a little more careful and be able to develop smaller response teams to try to get to those areas as quick as we can," Osborne says.

Emergency officials and insurance experts also warn people statewide to get prepared now. Most homeowners' insurance policies do NOT cover flooding, so if you live in a flood-prone area, you need to get separate flood insurance. But there's a 30-day waiting period to get it, so you can't wait until a hurricane is approaching to try to get coverage.

One concern about another busy season is the fact that so many members of the National Guard in South Carolina are deployed for the war, so they wouldn't be available to help before, during and after a storm. "Manpower, with the National Guard deployed, is a little short, but I think we can pull it off," says Osborne. "It may not be quite as smooth as we'd like, but we can, if we had to, evacuate the entire coast."