“””hurricanes are wreaking ever-more havoc each time one pummels another part of the country.”””
Let’s look at the population in the Greater Houston area. In 1950 there were less than 1 million people living there. Today, there are more than 6 million people living in the Greater Houston area.
Yes, Harvey set a new rainfall record, but there have been several other past hurricanes that have dumped 30 inches or more rain. So it was not a totally unusual event.
Would Harvey had caused the damage it did if there had only been 1 million people living in the Greater Houston Area? How much damage if Harvey had happened in 1950?
When people choose to live along low-lying coastal areas and inland flood plains, they need to accept the risk for doing so. The real estate developers can build levees, dikes, or retention ponds in low lying areas, but those man made structures may not be enough.
Here is a thought. Maybe we have enough people already in the USA and we do not need to have more people living along the East and Gulf Coast or more people living in earthquake prone West Coast. Maybe the financial risk of hurricanes and earthquakes in heavily populated cities is too great.
There were others with much more rainfall in 24 hours (e.g. TS Claudette, 1979). Others that stalled and dumped a lot of rain (e.g. TS Allison in 2001). But none with this amount of rain over a wide area due to stalling plus intensity, in the history of US rainfall measurements (caveats: historical measurements are probably inadequate before the 1940's, US mainland only) As people have pointed out, Hawaii and Central America have had higher rainfall events.