Despite more than 1,800 deaths from Hurricane Katrina last fall, more than three-quarters of Eastern North Carolinians polled by Harvard University said they hadn't done more this year to prepare for hurricanes.

And about a third of those surveyed here and in the other seven states most vulnerable to hurricanes said they may not obey orders to evacuate.

"It will be a challenge for public officials to convince many of these people to leave their homes because they view their homes as safe and evacuating as dangerous," said Robert J. Blendon, the professor who led the survey for the Harvard School of Public Health. "In addition, most of those who plan on staying believe they would be rescued if they needed to be."

The survey, released Thursday, was among the first to plumb attitudes toward disasters since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans last year. It was conducted between July 5 and 11 and sampled residents of all counties within 50 miles of the coast in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas.

North Carolina ranks second to Florida in the number of hurricanes that have come ashore in recent years. Since 1996, the state has been hit by 15 hurricanes or tropical storms. Its barrier islands would be vulnerable to a direct hit from a major hurricane, but in recent years inland flooding has caused some of the worst death and destruction. in such storms. In 1999, Hurricane Floyd left 52 dead and $6 billion worth of damage after swamping much of Eastern North Carolina.

State emergency management officials were heartened by some of the survey results. North Carolinians were significantly more confident than the average hurricane zone resident that their evacuation routes would work well and that conditions at storm shelters would be acceptable.

"It's nice to know that they feel that way," said Doug Hoell, director of the state Division of Emergency Management. "We have a fair amount of experience here with recent hurricanes, and perhaps that builds a degree of confidence."

For major storms, state officials have plans to reverse the eastbound lanes of Interstate 40 leading to the Wilmington area to boost the highway's capacity for evacuees. Other roads are designated escape routes. County officials, in coordination with the state, establish shelters.

Katrina came ashore Aug. 29, smashing much of the Mississippi coast and flooding New Orleans. Most who were stranded in the city atop flooded houses and overpasses and in squalid shelters were black, and some claimed at the time that blacks were reluctant to evacuate. The survey, though, found that African-Americans were nearly twice as likely as whites to leave their homes in a mandatory evacuation, 41 percent versus 23 percent.

It was not clear whether that difference in attitude existed before Katrina, Blendon said, because there was no earlier survey to compare with the new results.

Linda Pearce has lived in Wilmington for most of her 60 years. She said Katrina probably changed the thinking in her African-American community about what level of threat warrants leaving.

But Pearce, who operates an adult day care center, didn't need Katrina to open her eyes. She stayed through Hurricane Hazel's assault on the city in 1954 and has dealt with a dozen other hurricanes since then.

"I'd board up and leave if a Category 3 or above was imminent," she said. "I'm a little bit of a gambler, but not a big gambler."

Pearce's hurricane plan is to drive inland to a family member's home in Kenly off Interstate 95. But she'd stay put for less perilous storms and indeed has stocked up on fresh batteries for her flashlight.

Evacuation issues, she said, are as much about class as anything else. For example, poor people, no matter what race, are less likely to own automobiles.

Unexpected results

Blendon said he usually has a good sense of what a survey will reveal, but this time there were surprises.

The racial split on evacuating was one, he said. Another was that two-thirds of the respondents were confident they would be rescued if they couldn't evacuate and needed help. Given the muddled rescue efforts in New Orleans after Katrina, he had expected less confidence in government's ability to mount rescues.

Because of Katrina, the team had expected a majority to say that they had prepared more for the storm season. Just 38 percent had.

The survey data are available at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ hurricane/topline.doc.