By Peter Biello
Wilmington, NC – The National Hurricane Center is urging residents of coastal states to prepare for a busy storm season. According to a Mason-Dixon poll, 53-percent of coastal residents say they do not feel vulnerable to a hurricane. But Michelle Ubben, spokesperson for the National Hurricane Survival Initiative, says all residents of coastal states should be prepared. She says after a quiet 2006 season, people have been lulled into a sense of complacency, which could be dangerous.
Certainly every resident who is within striking distance of the coast needs to take steps and assume that a big storm will come their way, because it's really a matter of time. It's when, not if.
Ubben says 16-percent of residents polled said they would not leave if ordered to evacuate. She says it's not yet possible to predict the strength or path of hurricanes, but that experts predict 17 major storms this year.