Mamie Dangerfield huddled in the living room of her mobile home off College Park Road, her children around her, her husband with an oxygen tank, as Hurricane Gaston struck seemingly out of nowhere.

"That thing come up so quickly we couldn't get out of here. They said don't go out on the road," she said. "I did some praying, believe me."

A limb from a falling pine slammed into the roof, terrifying the Berkeley County family and leaving a gash that leaked rain. Even after they covered the roof with plastic, it leaked. The family sought emergency assistance to repair it. But the damage eventually would push them to look for another home.

That was 2004.

Today is the official opening of the 2005 hurricane season. The season runs through November. Dangerfield, like other Lowcountry residents left picking up the pieces from the barrage of storms last year, is just not ready to go through it again.

But the weather signs are all bad. The Bermuda high-pressure ridge has weakened, one more unsettling bit of news for South Carolinians trying to read the meteorological tea leaves. Forecasters are calling for another active season. "Hurricane guru" William Gray on Tuesday increased his prediction of the already large number of storms he expects will form.Get ready not just for a storm but for a recovery.

The Dangerfields were among a handful of families across Berkeley County whose homes were ruined by Gaston last August -- too few to qualify for any of the $3 million in federal disaster relief money given out after the storm.

Each of them had to scramble to find help. Each of them had to find somewhere else to live and a way to pay for it.

The American Red Cross helped patch the Dangerfields' roof, part of more than $12,000 in emergency food, clothing and shelter help it gave hard-hit Berkeley County. But the family had to scrape together resources for months in order to move. They have sold the damaged home.

"This is real stuff. This is real life," said Rebecca Hibner, a Red Cross volunteer, as she hugged Dangerfield on a visit last week.

Dangerfield walked through her old mobile home and stopped to stare at the plywood patch covering the spot where the tree fell.

She has lived all her life with hurricanes. She rode out devastating Hurricane Hugo in 1989 in an apartment. She has begun setting aside emergency supplies.

This year she will handle things differently. "If I could tell people one thing, I'd tell them to get out," she said. "If I can get out of there, I'm getting out of there."

The linchpin to the pounding that Florida took last summer -- four hurricanes in six weeks -- was a persistent Bermuda high-pressure ridge in the western Atlantic Ocean that kept the storms from turning north as they neared the United States, a forecaster said.

The good news for Florida this year isn't good news for the Carolinas. Weather researchers have found a correlation between how strong the ridge is in May and how strong it becomes again in August through September for the Cape Verde period that is the heart of East Coast hurricane season.

"The Bermuda high is weaker than normal, much weaker than it was last year," said Jim Lushine, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Miami. That means storms this year are expected to follow more normal tracks.

"Instead of them all coming into Florida, some of them will turn up in your direction," Lushine said. The strength of the high most closely resembles 1999, when Hurricane Floyd raked the S.C. coast.

Researchers continue to say weather has moved into a multi-decade period of more active hurricane development.

On Tuesday, the Tropical Meteorology Project, Gray's group, called for 15 storms, with eight becoming hurricanes and four becoming "major" hurricanes with winds of at least 111 mph. It increased the group's April prediction by two storms, one hurricane and one major hurricane. It virtually matched the National Hurricane Center forecast in May.

Gray gave a 59 percent probability that at least one major hurricane will strike the East Coast.

ALAN HAWES/STAFF Red Cross volunteer Rebecca Hibner (left) hugs Mamie Dangerfield at Dangerfield's former mobile home Thursday in Sangaree in Berkeley County. The home was damaged last year by Gaston, which was upgraded to a hurricane months after it hit.

The "mean return period," or the average time period between the landfalls of a Category 1 hurricane in the 75 miles around Charleston, is 11 years. Two Category 1 hurricanes -- Gaston and Charley -- landed within that range last year.

Nearly everyone has thought it or heard somebody say it: I'm not going to worry about damage to my house in a hurricane, FEMA money will fix it. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency is no ready handyman.

To receive disaster-relief payments, an area and the person have to meet several qualifications, said John Legare, of the state emergency management office. The qualifications can't always be met.

And any payments made are designed as a helping hand, said Mary Hudak, of the federal agency, "not to return you to the way you were before the disaster."

Disaster relief officials say it's important to have national flood insurance, and because the insurance carries a 30-day waiting period, it's a good idea to ask about it now. The program is run by the federal agency, and policies are sold by most insurance companies. The insurance covers damages that homeowner policies don't.

Families in Berkeley County were caught short last year when their numbers failed to qualify for the federal money. No homeowner disaster relief money was given out in Berkeley County, but 57 homeowners in the county received $523,710 in national flood insurance payments.

"It's important to review your existing insurance. It's a good idea to have flood insurance," Legare said. "It's one of those situations when it's always best to prepare for the worst if you're going to get the best out of the situation."

For more information, contact the National Flood Insurance Program at 1-888-379-9531 or http://www.floodsmart.gov/.