SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP):

Caribbean islanders still get night sweats recalling the dark hours in 2004 when Hurricane Wilma's shrieking gales and drenching rain unearthed caskets from cemeteries, tossing corpses on to porches and roofs in The Bahamas.

Now, with Friday marking the start of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season that lasts through November, nerves are on edge across the region, with forecasters predicting more tropical storms than normal this season in warmer Atlantic waters.

Psychologists helping people cope with lingering fears of displacement and chaos say some victims of monster storms show evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"No doubt about it, the word 'hurricane' is a bad word here. With all the recent hot and dry weather, everyone is tense that we're in for a hard season," said psychologist Pamula Mills, who helps relieve schoolchildren's storm stress for the Bahamian Ministry of Education.

Stronger season

Forecasters also predicted a stronger-than-average hurricane season last year, but the weather was muted by El Nio, the tropical Pacific warming effect that can change wind patterns in the eastern Atlantic. The latest El Nio cycle is over and the climate phenomenon should not influence this hurricane season, said Bill Proenza, head of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Other conditions could develop that encourage more storms this year than last, he added.

U.S. National Weather Service expects 13 to 17 tropical storms this year, with seven to 10 of them becoming hurricanes and three to five of them in the strong category.

Hurricanes are among nature's most powerful natural events. Spinning as fast as a race car, sheer walls of wind and rain can rise 10 miles (16 kilometres) into the stratosphere and span 400 miles (640 kilometres), dwarfing most Caribbean island nations and territories.