It all started just a little over a month ago. Pestilence, plague (so to speak), death, and destruction. What a bummer! So here we are, at the beginning of another desperate season of weather-related destruction. And the much-abhorred hurricane season hasn't even arrived yet.

Somehow, tornadoes have always been put on the back burner … until a couple of weeks ago. First there were those 113 tornadoes that swept through the central United States, all in one night. The coup de grace occurred when we were in Nashville, Tenn., for the PLRB conference and tornadoes swept through the area, an extremely scary scenario, especially when you're witnessing it all from the penthouse-floor window of your high rise hotel suite (so much for concierge floors!). Horribly, merely a week later, another series of tornadoes devastated the same areas of Nashville. This time it was even worse, with dozens of dead and scores still missing, at this writing. Welcome to the early start of the Mean Season.

In the insurance industry, we've all become accustomed to cringing at the June 1 start of hurricane season, and we hold our collective breath until it passes. Unfortunately, we have, of late, become accustomed to its passing later and later, as the window of "hurricane opportunity" and intensity continues to increase and escalate. So the "celebration" of possible recovery has started early this year.