In New Orleans, they built levees for a 1 in 100 year flood, and skimmed the rest of the money for political influencing building and corruption. And for a few decades, they were fine.
Then year 100 came, and their sins were revealed.
I’m not saying that’s exactly what happened in Texas, but in any bureaucracy, there is always a strong tendency to go for the short-term solution.
1 in 100 years is hardly a short term solution.
Unless you have infinite amounts of money, you always have to pick a cutoff point.
I suppose it comes down to a risk/benefit equation which is often very hard to quantify, after all, how much is a life worth?
And how often does a Katrina size storm come around?
After 9/11, instead of hardening the infrastructure, they built $$$$ high brick walls around electrical substations. Brilliant thinking there. Now, passerbys can’t see inside, what had been chainlink fencing, if there are terrorists monkeying around.