>>what about the American public that chooses to live in dangerous, unstable areas and then of course lose all to the naturally occurring storms and then expect the government and the taxpayer to pay for their choice?
Can you name a single area in the US not prone to natural disasters? I can't think of one.
The Gulf and SE -- Hurricanes.
NE and Northern plains -- Blizzards, Ice storms, Hurricanes at times
Central Plains -- tornados, drought
SW -- severe drought, limited water
West Coast -- earthquakes, volcanos
Every major or minor river system in the US -- floods.
There is not a single city over 500K people that is not affected by natural disasters of one kind or another (according to 2000 census: NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Dallas, San Antonio, Detroit, San Jose, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Jacksonville, Columbus, Austin, Baltimore, Memphis, Milwaukee, Boston, DC, El Paso, Seattle, Denver, Nashville, Charlotte, Fort Worth, Portland, Ok City).
Time for us all to move?
Reporters were saying that only one in five homes was shuttered or boarded up. People saw the hurricane in the Gulf and assumed it would not hit them because they rarely do. Because they wasted their efforts on previous hurricanes that missed, they became complacent. This is, of course, not a valid excuse to get money to fix your home.
The fact that I have to pay federal taxes for people who knew about a risk but refused to fix it, and for people who did not even try to protect their homes makes me more than a little angry. I live in Seattle. We are prone to earthquakes (the last major one occurred in 2001). During the last earthquake, many flaws in the infrastructure of the city were found (including a major fault in a seawall). These are now being fixed, not being completely ignored. If a major earthquake hit Seattle, FEMA funds would be OK with me because people are at least taking precautions.