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As most seasoned Floridians know by now, hurricane season starts today and will continue through Nov. 30, leaving plenty of time for the numerous storms government meteorologists have predicted to find their way to land.

If there’s one thing that the Collier County Emergency Management department wants residents to do, it’s to prepare now for a season that is projected to have above normal activity.

“They need to prepare now and they need essentially two plans if (they) live on Marco or (they) live in the Marco area,” said Jim von Rinteln, an emergency management coordinator for Collier County. “The one thing that I would strongly advise is do their preparations now and don’t put it off and sit down and think about what they have to do.”

Those two plans are what residents will do if they are allowed to stay on the island and the other is to prepare to leave the island when there is an evacuation order, which is a much more likely scenario for Islanders than for those people living inland, says von Rinteln. That plan should not only include preparations for the home, but also where residents will evacuate to and what they should take with them, such as important documents. If people need information about how to prepare for hurricane season, Collier County publishes a guide that will provide necessary information. However, von Rinteln said, it is important that people read it.

“The problem we have is people pick up the guide and don’t read it,” he said. “They think that picking up that guide and putting that in their nightstand is prepared.”

He also encouraged Islanders to follow evacuation orders when they are issued.

“If they don’t listen to the evacuation orders — that really is scary to us,” he continued. “That’s how people got killed on the Gulf Coast during Katrina.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecasted another active season, claiming that activity this season has a 75 percent chance of being above normal. An average season has 11 named storms and meteorologists with the agency have predicted that as many as 13 to 17 storms could be named in the six month season. Ten could become hurricanes and three to five of those could be major storms of a category three designation or higher.

The agency predicted last year that the 2006 season could rival that of 2005, which was the most active season in recorded history. However, meteorologists’ predictions for last year fell flat when no hurricanes made landfall in the United States, an occurrence scientists attributed to the formation of an El Nino weather pattern that suppressed tropical storm activity.

Hurricane Information is available on the Collier County Web site at www.co.collier.fl.us; including a schedule of hurricane preparedness seminars and a downloadable version of the guide.