Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

N is carefully calibrated by actuaries with hard data. Insurance companies stopped offering flood insurance to much of Florida decades ago - they're now covered by a federally subsidized program called the NFIP that has about five million policies. It has been a money pit since 2004 for obvious reasons.

California got plenty of federal funds to rebuild after the Northridge quake and what did the state do? It spent the next four years improving building codes - benefiting the entire country - and plowed the money into seismic retrofits. When >90% of home insurers pulled out, instead of depending on a federal program, the state created the California Earthquake Authority which is almost entirely privately funded within the state. I have no doubt the next big earthquake will require federal assistance but there hasn't been a major incident in nearly thirty years and the state, insurers, and homeowners have done a lot to mitigate future catastrophe.

The same thing is happening now in California with wildfires: many people in rural areas can only get insurance through the California FAIR Plan. The big difference is that the FAIR Plan is funded entirely through premiums and state funds. Very little if any federal funding goes to it because Trump turned it into a hot button issue just a few years ago. That's the one to watch out for, not earthquakes.

Edit: phrasing

Entire communities, and their economic output, will vanish. A good example are communities whose entire existence is owed to revenue generated by commercial fishing. What do you do with all the fishermen who don't know any other line of work?

Teach them to code?

Long Island, NY is prone to flooding and wind-damage from hurricanes and nor'easters. Areas are routinely destroyed or heavily damaged. Notable years are 1950, 1954, 1960, 1986, and 1999.

Asheville, NC is prone to flooding, land & rock slides, and the occasional earthquake. It is probably one of the state's most natural wonders, and the country-side a lovely place to live.

During periods of heavy rain and tropical events, downtown NYC floods the subways and streets and doing expensive salt water damage.

I know of no place on earth that is without some susceptibility to natural disaster. So where do we draw the line?

Effectively, such a rule would define these and other places as uninhabitable and render them ineligible for both commercial insurance and federal disaster aid. That seems so foolish and counter to our tradition as a nation. Such a rule would see the splintering and end to many long-standing communities.

If the concern is cost, you may want to turn your attention to discretionary federal expenditures.

Surely we can find places to cut bloat, pork, and wasteful spending, particularly in areas that range from nothing to very-little to do with the United States, her citizens, or their needs and emergencies that are a part of living on planet earth.

It is almost like that 75 billion we printed for Zelenskyy could have been used to help Americans.

Lastly, where does it end? How do we define the formula for making these rules, and who gets the define and apply that formula? Best case scenario, if this rule was a thing, you'd be looking at consolidating large parts of American society into more 'manageable' locations and mega cities, which were decreed as somehow having the least amount of risk, and lowest possible expense...

...in a vain attempt at avoiding the risk and expenditures of natural disasters?

...that happen everywhere?

...routinely.

It just seems foolish when you work through it to a practical end.

Individuals who didn’t support those attacks and want to work together, sure. The state as an aggregate entity? Absolutely not.