[bchgirl]

I live on the east coast of Virginia. The reason that many people don't prepare until the last minute, (I think), is because of the numerous times forecasters mis-cast where the hurricane is going. The storms haven't traveled out of the tropics before our local weathermen are discussing the possiblity of it hitting our area. So people "wait and see". Personally, I do fill up my tank. Had I been in Katina's path, I'd have done it last Friday. The problem isn't the lack of gasoline, it's no power, means no gas. Another thing people should do is get cash out of the bank for emergencies, etc. No power, no atm or banks opening. Unfortunately, people are so used to electricity, they don't expect it to be off for days and days. Usually your power goes out and shortly there after, a power crew has it back on. After Isabel came through here, we didn't have power at home for 2 weeks, much longer than I anticipated even with a generator. Even with the generator we were able to only power 4 items at a time (the fridge, a lamp, tv).

I'm rambling here, but suffice to say, if a hurricane hasn't hit your area in a long, long time, people get complaciate. If you've been hit, you aren't so complaciate any more.