The Big One

No one knows when the next major hurricane could hit the Cape, Coast, and Islands. But if and when the big one comes, it will bring days of wind, waves, and worries. And then the skies will clear. The economic impacts, on the other hand, could last for years.

"What they worry about," said Barnstable County Emergency Preparedness director Chip Reilly on the Bourne and Sagamore bridges, "is a tractor trailer truck going sideways and flipping over and then tying up the bridge. And then where do we stand?"

Warming ocean temperatures, and the end of El Niño mean the chances of New England seeing a major hurricane are higher.