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Well that is a good point, and I must admit I haven't really followed the preparations for this hurricane all that closely, so I can't comment on what was or wasn't done. But I think my main point still holds--there are always natural disasters, and there are ways to ameliorate the consequences, but you can't live in 100% safety from such disasters anyplace in the US (or the world for that matter).

And if we placed all the places where FReepers have said "you should just move" (either because of weather or politics) on the Do Not Live List, I don't think there would be a single major city to live in or near.

BTW I loved Seattle when I would visit from eastern WA. Glad that 'quake wasn't bigger, because there are a lot of (private) brick buildings there that probably could not handle a really big one.

I agree with you completely that there are disasters that come out of nowhere and you can't protect yourself from. One example is an earthquake that occurred in Montana in 1959 that knocked over a mountain and cut off one of the headwaters to the Missouri River. If major relief and work efforts were not done in this case (cutting an emergency connecting canal for the river), many people would have lost their homes due to flooding. Another example is of a recent funnel cloud sighting near Seattle. No one knows how it formed (it completely baffles the meteorologists), and if it hit a populated area, it would have been devastating. Since preparing for a tornado is Seattle would border on the absurd, no preparation was conducted. In this case federal money would be allowable. I only argue for withholding federal money when there is reckless disregard for a probable threat. Hurricanes in New Orleans certainly qualify as probable threat.

As an aside, there was an earthquake in Seattle in the 1940's that caused major damage to brick buildings. For this reason, most buildings that are built today are a composite construction. Purely brick buildings are the ones that survived the 1940's quake (as far as I can tell since they are almost exclusively old buildings).