California's Emergency Management agency recently reported that most of the state's citizens aren't prepared for "the big one." And it's certainly not because they don't know better. Uh, right?

Why is it that people wait for the asteroid to enter the atmosphere before they start to freak out?

Read more about it here, plus links to a nytimes story that ran today and the actual survey (for example: 60% of Californians don't have 3 gallons of water, per person, stored at home). Actually, I kind of thought it'd be more like 80 percent, but since it's a well known phenomenon that people lie when they're surveyed, it probably is closer to 80%.