Hurricane Sandy: Some Don't Believe the Hype

Many forecasters expect Hurricane Sandy to be the storm of the century, a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.

Such dire warnings conjure up images of disaster movies such as "The Day After Tomorrow" or "The Perfect Storm," but some New Yorkers have heard it all before, and they're not buying it.

"Good Morning America" found New Yorkers who don't believe the hype.

Part of the reason is that last year's much-hyped Hurricane Irene was a non-event in New York, although it did a lot of damage to the city's outlying areas.

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That's why one New York City family is blowing off warnings to evacuate their neighborhood.

"The wind may be strong, the noise, the sound, but I don't really think it's going to be as bad as they say it will be," one Battery Park City resident said.

That kind of psychology is troubling to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

"This is not the time to take a chance," Cuomo told a Sunday news conference. "Whatever it is, it is very serious and it is nothing to be trifled with."

Some people may scoff at their predictions, but forecasters are often right. The movie "The Perfect Storm" was based on an actual storm that killed people.

Thousands of people failed to heed the warnings about Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005 and became of the five deadliest storms in U.S. history.

In New York City, where some 375,000 residents in the city's low-lying areas were ordered evacuated, Mayor Michael Bloomberg Sunday highlighted the dangers that can come to not only themselves when people ignore officials' warnings.

"If you refuse to evacuate you're not only putting yourself at risk but also the first responders who will have put themselves at risk in an emergency," Bloomberg told a news conference.