By Toni Miles

Hurricane season officially starts on June 1, but forecasters with the National Hurricane Center have already tracked the first tropical wave of this year, in early May, about three weeks before the official start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Storm categories, in order of increasing strength, are tropical depression, tropical storm and hurricane, categories 1 to 5, with the number increasing based on each storm’s strength. Mississippi has seen all three over the years, and anyone who has lived in South Mississippi for any length of time knows lower-graded storms can be massive rain-makers and cause damage by flooding, sometimes worse than stronger graded storms or hurricanes.

Researchers with Colorado State University predict there will be at least nineteen named storms and nine hurricanes, four of which will be Category 3 or higher, this year, compared to the average hurricane season, which normally has fourteen named storms and three major hurricanes.

These exclusive photos of Highway 90 in Long Beach, taken by Long Beach Breeze's Toni Miles in 2005, just days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, show how destructive hurricanes and other storms in the Atlantic Hurricane Season can be.

Coastal residents know all too well it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active and destructive season and that preparations should be the same for every season, despite how much activity is predicted.

The Atlantic Hurricane Season ends November 30.