Worried that hurricane season may spoil your vacation plans?

Byline: Judy Wiley

Rhonda Mandel lived through Hurricane Katrina's fury in a Marriott Hotel ballroom, a makeshift shelter with a frightening view of the looters and floodwaters that poured through the streets of New Orleans after the storm.

A visitor from Fort Myers, Fla., she'd intended to fly home on Aug. 28, the day before the storm hit. But she was stranded when Delta Airlines canceled all its flights for that day.

Plenty of U.S. travelers shared Mandel's experience last year, when hurricanes tore through Cancun and Cozumel, as well as New Orleans. The season starts up again June 1 and continues through Nov. 30.

Hurricanes can be fickle _ vacationers might face a potentially deadly situation or just have to cancel an afternoon on the beach. Either way, you can take steps to make sure you aren't heading for a catastrophe, hang onto most of your vacation investment and stay safe if the worst happens.

Travel-industry experts say common sense is key.

"What we're telling people is don't overblow it," says Steve Cosgrove, owner of Dynamic Travel in Southlake, Texas. "Hurricanes are a fact of life in the Caribbean and have been for years. That shouldn't stop us from going down there and enjoying it."

Mandel didn't have a choice about making her trip _ she was helping her son get settled for his freshman year at Tulane University. When the evacuation announcement came, she figured she'd be fine _ her flight back to Florida was booked.

After Delta canceled, "I called; I yelled and screamed," Mandel says. "It didn't matter."

Delta spokesman Anthony Black says the airline flew an empty aircraft to New Orleans that Saturday for a flight that left the city around midnight. He says Delta decided to cancel flights Sunday because "we felt it was not operationally feasible to fly into that environment." The airline always tries to personally contact passengers about cancellations, Black says.

Mandel finally went home on a Delta flight from Baton Rouge on Wednesday of that week.

Insurance wouldn't have solved Mandel's problem, but it can save you money if you…