Poll: Not Ready for Disaster

People tend to think they will be lucky. Wind, rain and fire happen to other, less-fortunate individuals. In a new TIME poll of 1,000 American adults taken on the eve of the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, fewer than one in five (16%) said they are personally "very well" prepared for a natural disaster or public emergency. Of the rest, about half explained their lack of preparation by claiming they don't live in an area at risk for disasters. Even among Gulf Coast residents, a mind-boggling 43% said they don’t face much risk.

The truth is humbling: About 91% of Americans live in places at a moderate-to-high risk of earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, wind damage or terrorism, according to an estimate calculated for TIME by the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. We increasingly live in dense, coastal cities and consequently get hit by more frequent, more costly disasters.

But our curious confidence in our own safety keeps us from planning for the predictable catastrophes we know are coming.

from Time online