(CNN) -- The Atlantic hurricane season starts Sunday, and government forecasters are predicting an above-normal season, with as many as five major hurricanes. The eastern Pacific's first tropical storm of the year formed Thursday off Central America.

Three years after Hurricane Katrina, a poll indicates many coastal dwellers don't take a hurricane threat seriously.

So are people living in hurricane-prone areas prepared?

According to a new poll, the answer is a resounding "no."

The survey, conducted by the polling firm Mason-Dixon, found that 50 percent of the 1,100 adults surveyed in Atlantic and Gulf Coast states did not have disaster plans or survival kits.

"Nearly one in three said they would not prepare their home until a storm is within 24 hours of landfall," Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center, told reporters Thursday.