It would be understandable to greet the beginning of the 2009 hurricane season with a yawn.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says chances are good for a normal — read uneventful — season in the central Pacific. It's not expected to be like 1992, when El Niño conditions helped spawn to a bumper crop of storms that included Hurricane Iniki.

Nonetheless, as civil defense officials like to say, it takes only one. They're right, of course. And they're also right to prepare for the worst.

Last week's annual hurricane preparedness exercise on the North Shore, Makani Pahili, was based on a plausible scenario — a Category 4 hurricane, like Iniki, hitting the southern coast of O'ahu. The exercise anticipated massive destruction, a crippled infrastructure and casualties.

Thankfully, the lessons of Hurricane Katrina have not been ignored. The Federal Emergency Management Administration brought in more than 40 people for the exercise and paid the $680,000 tab. FEMA has also been expanding its efforts in Hawai'i, with an additional $7.2 million to be spent this year on equipment, training and staffing.

Even so, civil defense officials warn, government action won't be as immediate and efficient as individuals who've prepared for such a storm. That means being ready to live without electricity for 30 days, with severely restricted access to food or water, 70 percent of homes damaged or destroyed and roads from H-1 to the coast flooded and unusable.

To learn what to do, visit http://www.ready.gov and http://www.scd.hawaii.gov. And be prepared.