# What ought the government do/pay for AFTER a disaster (hurricane?) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 6, 2022, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ought-the-government-do-pay-for-after-a-disaster-hurricane/972825 "2022-10-06T15:32:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ought-the-government-do-pay-for-after-a-disaster-hurricane/972825/61 "2022-10-16T15:32:37Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The problem is how to stop the juggernaut of highly profitable coastal development and the corresponding vast herd of cold-country folks moving south in ever-increasing numbers. Yep. “Well guys, stop developing in the high hazard areas and begin planning to move out” **Reaction from the business/political Establishment** : “WHY ARE YOU AGAINST _GROWTH_?!?!?” **Reaction from those outside the Establishment** : “This is just another ploy to further control and dispossess us!” My own experience in PR recovery is yes, people want it to stop happenning again, but they want to keep their “sunk” investment or not lose the only community they’ve known all their lives. They just want a way to stop the flood from happening, and their houses fixed. The Corps of Engineers will quite frankly answer to this, yep, we could do it… but it will cost ya and take years and disrupt existing housing and business and infrastructure , and you’re gonna have to stop developing at various places near or around the body of water involved _forever_ for the protective measures to work. To which there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth and the Corps know at some point there will be some Members of Congress saying to the Chief: “your mission orders are to tame the waters: tame them”. They’ll sigh and carry out their orders as best they can, in the knowledge that the inevitable will be, well, inevitable. (Hell, before Maria hit the Corps had something like 41 pending projects in PR some from as far back as the 80s, worth 3 and a half billion at the time the proposals were made, waiting by dribs and drabs for, like, study phase or design phase of one or two to be appropriated every other year and then park them in the queue again for the next phase. After Maria they went up and said: look, every few years you have had to spend money on flood recovery that by now would have covered us to have built some of these. So in the last 5 years almost 3 billion were approved for like a dozen of the biggest projects and a number of small ones. But of course, turns out that now in 2022 you actually need 5 and a half billion to actually do them…) As **Crane** points out, FEMA funding is not, was never, intended as a bailout, it and CDBG-DR for communities are very clearly defined as supplemental, to provide for “unmet needs” i.e. those not covered by insurance or through other regular programs. They never had a mandate to make individual home or business owners “whole” again in-place at full federal expense, but to assist local authorities in managing the emergency and providing disaster _relief_ to their residents – if the lawmakers _had_ wanted them to become true Make Lives Whole or Build Back Better programs for individual families and businesses, they have had **decades** under **both** parties to make them so. > [@Crane](#): > > FEMA gave me $17,750 and the insurance company gave me $210,000. Both against the same claim. After a year I got a letter from FEMA requesting the money be returned because the damage was insured. In PR’s case we have had an issue that bunch of **insurors** went into OMG We’re Getting Wiped Out mode after 2017 so there’s people who had to fight them for years and then settle for whatever they got – which meant that in the meanwhile many people **had** to spend the FEMA money not knowing if it may be clawed back. Apparently similar cases happened in Louisiana since one of their Reps has a bill out in Congress to protect people from being on the hook for such disbursements if they _were_ used for the intended purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ought-the-government-do-pay-for-after-a-disaster-hurricane/972825/62 "2022-10-16T16:23:28Z")
Repeat all above for fire risk areas, areas lacking reliable fresh water. If a state wishes to allow risky development, the costs should be borne locally. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ought-the-government-do-pay-for-after-a-disaster-hurricane/972825/63 "2022-10-16T16:45:37Z")
How much of the country do we have left to live on? There were some tornados that came through here about 40 years ago that did quite a bit of damage, does that mean that this is also a high risk area that shouldn’t be built on? ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ought-the-government-do-pay-for-after-a-disaster-hurricane/972825/64 "2022-10-16T21:55:42Z")
Feel free to reduce it to absurdity if that appeals to you. I don’t think anyone suggested eliminating ALL risk of natural disaster. Instead, I and others have suggested having persons bear the cost of building/living in the highest risk areas. Eliminating the mile or 2 immediately along many coasts, or in fire plagued mountains of California still leaves plenty of space to live - even in coastal states. And anyone can live wherever they want - so long as they bear the risks/costs of doing so. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ought-the-government-do-pay-for-after-a-disaster-hurricane/972825/65 "2022-10-17T03:09:49Z")
Tornados are actually very insurable. Build a storm cellar to protect yourself, buy insurance, and if you get unlucky and a tornado takes out your house, there’s no compelling reason not to take the insurance money and rebuild. Coastlines are much more problematic. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ought-the-government-do-pay-for-after-a-disaster-hurricane/972825/66 "2022-10-17T06:25:51Z")
Tornadoes can be very destructive, but the territory they tear up isn’t nearly as extensive as that impacted by hurricanes. The disaster isn’t nearly as widespread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ought-the-government-do-pay-for-after-a-disaster-hurricane/972825.md?page=3)