Thanks equitas...much appreciated. One of the problems in fact was that there was "lots and lots of data". I ended up arbitrarily picking decades, and subsequently single years to divide it up. I think my next plan is make a query based web service that will send you back a kmz file based on parameters such as intensity, location, date ranges, etc., and/or combinations thereof. For example....

I want all category 3 or 4 hurricanes that passed within 100 miles of New Orleans between 1970 and 1985. (but through a UI)

And then have it return a kmz based on that query. Much work to be done. I'm scouring the web for more nice datasets....they're hard to find for free.

Paully