take on the male vs female hurricane study

I read an article on CNN yesterday which stated that hurricanes with Female names are less devastating than ones with Male names.   The study, which looked at all hurricanes from 1950 through 2012, showed that feminine hurricanes named Cathy or Tracy have killed many more people than any of the masculine ones like Richard and Chris..  They theorized that it had to do with an intimidation factor with people doing more preparation for male-named hurricanes.

A buddy commented that since he didn't remember many male hurricanes that it doesn't seem possible and we tend to agree.    Although it certainly can help with limiting death and injuries, a hurricane is going to cause major structural damage regardless of preparation, so you'd think that male ones are just as likely to destroy levies, bridges and buildings..

Looking a bit further, it seems the study is completely skewed because up until 1979 all hurricanes were female so all hurricanes before that date should be tossed out of the study.. The way we see it, chances are that this has nothing to do with people putting more onus in male hurricanes and probably just some statistical fluke

but if you want a reason why this is, I will give you one..   maybe female hurricanes are actually larger in scope for the following reason: since they alternate between M/F names this might actually have something to do with climates, I figure that after a major storm there might not be enough tension in the air to allow for the build-up of another in a specific region and since you have certain areas in the Caribbean for example where they all seem to originate, maybe it's just the fact that when there is a big female hurricane it just can't be followed up with a large male one...

or maybe people are stupid enough to not put wood on their windows because the next storm is called Nikol as opposed to Tim