Hurricane Gustav in Mississippi last year (AP). In recent summers, energy markets have been glued to weather reports as a series of tropical storms and hurricanes battered oil rigs, refineries and the like in the Gulf of Mexico, ... But don 't throw out those evacuation plans just yet. The NOAA warned Americans to stay on their guard, and noted that slow starts are actually the norm for hurricane season—the true anomalies were the busy years of 2005 and 2008. ...