It’s Opening Day of the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season and emergency managers’ say their greatest challenge may not be in coordinating efforts amongst themselves or responding to storm.

The bigger challenge is convincing the millions of people who live along the US Atlantic and Gulf Coasts to take responsibility for themselves, their families and their neighbors..

Despite the post Katrina mantra of “Take Care of Yourself” residents remain remarkably aloof as “hurricane amnesia” returns from North Carolina, around the Florida peninsula to a Louisiana coast still rebuilding from the most costly hurricane in U.S. history.

“As the 2009 hurricane season approaches, many residents still believe it won’t happen to them,” said Dr. Jack Beven, senior hurricane forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Unfortunately, these devastating storms could happen to anyone and the only way to keep yourself and your family safe is to be prepared.”

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association predicts the 2009 hurricane season will be near normal year with a 70 percent chance of having nine to 14 named storms.

A Mason-Dixon Poll released last week, however, indicates that state officials have their work cut out for them. In a survey of 1,100 Gulf Coast respondents, pollsters found apathy and misinformation at troubling levels.

More than eight in 10 poll respondents said they had taken no action in the past year to make their home stronger and nearly two out of three don’t have a hurricane survival kit. Nearly that percentage said they don’t feel vulnerable to hurricanes or their related aftermaths of flooding and tornadoes.

Such apathy is prompting coastal states to take some innovative approaches. In Louisiana, emergency managers are using coloring books for children to get their parents more involved in pre-storm preparation.

Coastal Wal-Mart pharmacies will hand out more than 600,000 flyers to customers who frequent their stores while Louisiana officials plan on using the social network Twitter to provide up-to-the minute “tweets” on emergency management updates and public safety information.

“We’re just trying to arm people with as much information as possible,” says Veronica Mosgrove, spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness. “The more we do the better. The more personally responsible people can be, the better the outcome.”

North Carolina Governor Beth Perdue and cabinet members spent a day last week in hurricane mode as they conducted a mock exercise in preparation for the upcoming season. It was the first such high-level practice session in a state that took the brunt from Hurricane Floyd in 1999. The hurricane killed 52 people and caused more than $6 billion in damage.

“We all need t know what our roles are,” Perdue said. “I know what my role is.”

Similar simulations were held throughout last week at emergency operations centers along the coasts as cash-strapped states try to stretch recession-squeezed dollars without compromising safety.

In Florida, a tight budget forced lawmakers to abandon a sales tax holiday targeting hurricane supplies. Given budget constraints throughout the region, emergency managers are urging penny-pinching residents to purchase supplies in small bunches so they can have want they need before a storm hits.

“You can try to make preparations in the midst of a storm’s formation, but it might be too late,” echoed Charley English, director of the Georgia emergency management agency.

Michael Peltier, Florida correspondent for HSToday.us, is a Florida based journalist who has written extensively on hurricane preparedness for Homeland Security Today Magazine.