2017 will be remembered as the year the water came.

Hurricane Harvey dropped as much as 60 inches of rain on parts of Houston, shattering American meteorological records. Hurricane Irma was the strongest tropical storm ever recorded outside the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and plowed through Florida in early

And Category 4 Hurricane Maria pulverized Puerto Rico with 150-mph winds, leaving the island in darkness and ruin. Altogether, the three storms will costthe U.S. more than $200 billion, which would make 2017 the most expensive hurricane season on record.

Yet there is every reason to expect that the towns and the cities hit by the hurricanes of 2017 will be rebuilt–even, eventually, devastated Puerto Rico. Thank the federal government–when a storm or flood strikes a community, Washington is there with generous disaster relief, either through billions of dollars in direct aid or through the cushion of federally-subsidized flood insurance plans.

The confidence in the federal government’s backing keeps lenders sending money to disaster-hit communities, which encourages residents to stay put and rebuild, rather than flee for safer areas. This in […]