You and some other people on here have some serious first word bias. Do you think these people choose to live in a plywood shanty? How exactly are they supposed to afford a house built to cat 3 hurricane standards? It’s no different here either. Do you know how many people live in mobile homes because they can’t afford a house that meets the required hurricane codes? Are they better off?
When you have to rebuild time and time and time and time and time again, you might want to consider that all those rebuilds cost more than building something more sturdy which won’t need to be rebuilt.