Interesting questions, Red. Years ago, John Stossel questioned the wisdom of low cost gov't flood insurance, particularly for homes built out on islands that are hurricane barriers. The problem with insurance, and with FEMA aid, is how you handle people who bought homes in good conscience well back from the coast, having no idea that they were in a potential risk zone.
Honestly, there's a common sense balance here. If you build a house on Galveston Island facing the Gulf, you're kind of asking for it. If you build a house in Houston, 15 miles off the coast and 110' above sea level, you shouldn't have to worry about flooding from a Hurricane. The homes that were flooded in NW Houston were as the result of water released from a dam, and that is going to be very much second-guessed. Should they have started lowering the water level BEFORE the storm, as they've been doing north of Miami this week? This was statistically a low-risk situation, and there may be ways to further mitigate that risk, going forward.
I don't want to get into a political argument about whether the climate is warming, or whose fault that is. But for sure, all climatologists I know of agree that we will continue to see more dramatic weather events. That could be cold winters, hot summers, hurricanes, tornadoes, or forest fires in the west and northwest. Every time there's a major news story, people start questioning the wisdom of building near the coast, in Tornado Alley, near the San Andreas Fault Line, near forests that burn, etc. The reality is that, while we shouldn't build houses on barrier islands, we also can't live in a safety bubble. And we have to live somewhere.