Due to government regulation, most U.S. communities ARE much safer when they rebuild after a hurricane. Instead of trying to build rock-solid, homes must be on stilts, with the ground area used for parking or storage. If there are walls on the ground level, they must be built so they break away if a storm surge comes through, so the surge cannot knock over the whole building. The home-on-stilts idea also improves the occupant's view.

We visited friends in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. They're on a point of land across from New Bedford Harbor, in a beautiful location that's very vulnerable to storms. It's amazing to see how all the houses in the neighborhood are built to withstand storms.

Same goes for homes here along the Sacramento River in my area. They're beautiful homes with beautiful views - all built on stilts.

They're doing more to help new homes survive forest fires, but I don't think they've reached a really safe level of design yet.

Tornadoes? Well, it helps to have a storm cellar. It's now required for mobile homes to be anchored to the ground, but mobile home parks still get hit hard by tornadoes - and houses don't survive much better. On my trip last Autumn, I also went to Joplin, Missouri, a fair-sized city that was hit hard by a huge tornado in 2011. They were still working hard on recovery in 2016.

And tornado locations are so unpredictable, that people just take their chances.

-Joe-