The results of the pre-season survey by American Initiatives/Mason-Dixon as reported in our last issue still reverberate and cause a rise in blood pressure. Essentially, the findings show that most residents of coastal regions of the United States are dangerously complacent about hurricanes and are at risk because they are poorly prepared (see “Ho-Hum . . .,” Summer 2008, page 18).

The release of the survey results came too close to that issue’s publishing deadline to fully appreciate and comment on them. The first words that come to mind to describe the affect they had are something like “jaw-dropping amazement” followed by, “Are you kidding me?” The poll of 1,100 adults living in Atlantic and Gulf coast states found that 54 percent don’t feel vulnerable to a hurricane or related tornado or flooding. Nearly all (85 percent!) have taken no steps to make their homes stronger since the last hurricane season.

How could they possibly feel this way? Apparently, not all the respondents live in coastal counties. If they did, the results might have been different. For many, living farther inland probably feels safer (68 percent didn’t know that resulting tornadoes can threaten those living hundreds of miles from the eye of a hurricane). Then there’s hurricane amnesia and all—Wilma was so long ago, what has there been to threaten me lately?

Have they forgotten the U.S. southeast and Gulf coasts have been in the path of hurricanes for only, oh, a millennium or so? Living there and not feeling vulnerable is like living in the woods and not feeling threatened by a forest fire or two; or like living in a cantilevered house on the side of a hill on the West Coast and not planning for mud slides or heavy rains.

If homeowners in high-risk areas are complacent and not prepared, it’s not for a lack of trying by a host of people, agencies and organizations involved in hurricane forecasting, mitigation and protection. But get this: A Florida reporter at the World of Hurricane Protection Trade Show last spring questioned if the hurricane protection industry wasn’t trying to scare homeowners about storms in order to sell products.

Well, if scaring them is what it takes, then maybe that’s the way to go. As Gene Enyart points out in this issue’s cover story (page 16), these same homeowners have insurance to protect their cars, their boats, their jewelry . . . why not to protect their families?

Kerri Caldwell and Howard Shingle