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It only takes one hurricane to ruin your year. And the pain of a major hurricane strike can last for years to come.

With the onset of hurricane season, that's the message Matthew Belk hopes to get through to the public. Yet, residents in the Attleboro area hardly flinch when hurricane season begins.

Hurricane season officially began June 1 and runs through Nov. 30, although the months of August and September are the most active.

Belk, a meteorologist and the hurricane program leader at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Taunton, speaks to the public regularly about how to prepare for hurricanes, but he finds convincing people to do so is one of the more difficult parts of the job.

"I would argue it is going to be far less expensive than not being prepared at all in terms of things that you can do," he said. For Belk, it's not a matter of "IF" a hurricane strikes, but "WHEN."

"It's just a matter of time before New England sees one," he said. "I can't tell you if it'll be next week or next year, but it will happen at some point in the future."

But if Attleboro isn't a coastal community, just how much of a threat does an approaching hurricane hold?

"In this area, you obviously don't have to worry about coastal flooding, but you do have to worry about wind and fresh water flooding," Belk said.

Attleboro saw how much damage wind and water could do in 1938.

Heavy rain caused severe flooding. The Blue Hill Observatory in Milton measured sustained winds of 121 mph and gusts reaching 186 mph. The wind felled trees and blew the water out of the ponds, slamming it against nearby houses.

Eight notable hurricanes have struck the area since the unnamed hurricane of '38, costing hundreds of lives and billions of dollars in damage across New England.

And be assured, the next big hurricane won't hit the average home-owner's wallet any more lightly. Now far more densely populated, Attleboro land that was once pervious has become impervious, which would cause more runoff and therefore more serious flooding during a hurricane.

Attleboro assessed the potential danger in 2004 in its Natural Hazards Disaster Mitigation Plan. It emphasizes that "most experts anticipate that the next major New England hurricane will have severe impacts because present residents are unaware of the serious danger, and major property investment has increased the value of structures in the region."

One of those experts is Kerry Emanuel, professor of meteorology at MIT and one of the world's leading authorities on hurricanes. "I've heard rumors that the current administration in Washington is thinking about starting to include wind insurance," Emanuel said of legislation currently under consideration that would give actuarial rates - rates set according to probabilities from statistical records - to homeowners who participate in the federal national flood insurance program.

Emanuel says it's a move in the wrong direction.

"The root problem is policy in the U.S. encourages people to move into risky places and build infrastructure," he said.

Emanuel says Americans perceive risk through pricing and respond to prices, not government initiatives.

"You'd think twice before buying a $300,000 house if insurance cost $1,000 a year," he said.

Despite already high insurance prices on the coast, he said they should be still higher to fully match the risk of damage hurricanes can cause.

He also said those inland are paying too large a premium on hurricane insurance, subsidizing those on the coast and making it less likely to seem a justifiable investment to most.

"The guy in Worcester doesn't know his premium is 10 or 20 percent too high, but I have a feeling if they did know they're subsidizing they'd realize the system we have is unfair," Emanuel said.

But hurricanes will arrive despite what the people know and don't know.

The National Weather Service forecasts that this season is 50 percent likely to have a near-normal season, meaning there will be several tropical storms, of which six will become hurricanes and two of grow to a Category 3 or higher.

The Hurricane of '38 was a Category 3 storm, as was Hurricane Katrina, which struck Southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005, devastating New Orleans and a swath of the Gulf Coast, from East Texas to Mississippi.

"The big factor this year is we're actually in a neutral El Niño-Southern Oscillation pattern going into a weak El Niño," Belk said.

When there is a strong El Niño affect, there tends to be more wind shear - changes in wind speed and direction over a short distance - across the Atlantic, which breaks up potential hurricanes before they can become organized.

So, a weak El Niño means fewer winds to break up the hurricane.

The implications of that projection for this year's hurricane season are uncertain.

"I don't make seasonal predictions," Emanuel said.

He, like Belk, has taken a long-term view on preparation for what they believe to be an ever-looming threat.