During the time when so few hurricanes hit North America, we as a society framed decisions about land use, construction standards and other aspects of our lives around the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, ... Built into those plans was the unstated assumption that hurricanes would continue to stay away from our shores as they had for the last third of a century.

From 1970 to 1995, there weren't that many hurricanes, and the ones we had were nice, well-mannered, housebroken hurricanes that stayed out to sea and didn't make a mess.

You'd need a lot of mini-subs.

This is the nailbiting time for forecasters, ... We're waiting for Bertha to make her turn to the northeast but there's some uncertainty about when it will happen.

We don't know what was going on out in the middle of the ocean.

This cycle has been repeating back to the Ice Age. It's related to changes in the ocean currents that move heat northward. If it's fast, we get a lot of hurricanes.

We aren't talking about a whole lot of money.

The suggestion I heard was, pull it with mini-subs.

If I were really astute, ... I'd go out tonight and seed the clouds, and when the winds drop I'd claim, `I saved Houston! For $50 million, I'll do it again.