By the numbers, the 2004 season has produced 15 storms, nine of them hurricanes. Six were "major" hurricanes with sustained winds of more than 110 mph (177 kph).

"The amazing thing was only three of the storms did not have an impact on land," said US National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield. Officials said 9.4 million people along the US Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts came under evacuation orders this season.

Florida took the brunt of the damage in the United States, with hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne walloping the state within a six-week span, the first time a single state was hit by four hurricanes in one season since 1886, NHC officials said.

Damage from the four storms may exceed the $25 billion-plus toll of Hurricane Andrew, the killer 1992 storm against which all others in Florida are measured. "Future hurricanes will continue to bring higher and higher damages as long as we continue to develop the coastlines," Mayfield said.

CARIBBEAN LOSSES

In the Caribbean, Grenada, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic and Haiti sustained serious losses. Ivan damaged 90 percent of Grenada's housing stock, and Jeanne, as a tropical storm, spawned floods that killed about 3,000 people in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.

Hurricane Ivan was a nightmare for the oil industry, thrashing through the Gulf of Mexico's most productive oil and gas fields and wrecking platforms and undersea pipelines.

Damage from the storm, which helped push oil prices to over $55 a barrel this fall, has so far cut more than 32 million barrels from an already tightly supplied market.

That is more than twice the impact on US oil production caused by powerful hurricanes Isidore and Lili in 2002.

Producers have still not fully recovered their output, with about 10 percent of their normal production still shut.

Even as the official season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, waned, hurricane forecasters named the 15th storm. Otto was born on Tuesday about 810 miles (1,300 km) east of Bermuda with 45 mph (72 kph) winds. It poses no threat to any land.

Study of Tropical Storm Gaston, which hit South Carolina three months ago, convinced experts that it had achieved the sustained 74 mph (119 kph) winds needed to be classified a hurricane, giving the 2004 season nine hurricanes.

The last decade brought more Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes than any 10-year period in history. That trend could continue for another two or three decades, officials said.

But for Florida, where thousands of residents are still struggling with cleanup, roof repairs and temporary housing from four hurricane strikes, a rerun of 2004 is highly unlikely.

"It's a very, very rare event," Mayfield said. "I wouldn't expect it again."