It is estimated that the US will have over $400B in damages from natural disasters in 2017, the most in US history (with many, such as CA wildfires and PR blackouts still ongoing). As my former boss at NOAA liked to say, "this is the new normal." We have a troubling combination of larger populations and climate change, meaning it's going to get worse not better. While we can do something to combat climate change (though unlikely in the short term), we are still going to have disasters so what we have to do is reduce our vulnerability to them. This is why Trump's indiscriminate call to slash regulations is so dangerous. Many regulations are in place so that we don't make ourselves more vulnerable. But cutting things like building set-backs, building code requirements, wetland protections, etc. only makes us more vulnerable. It's an extremely troubling development and frankly is something that both sides of the aisle should be against. There is a pretty clear path to saving and protecting American lives, and we are choosing against it.
