Having worked on the long‐term recovery of the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina, I am keenly interested in how our country plans for future disasters. One of the primary lessons learned from the 2005 hurricane season was that mitigation saves lives and property and reduces the costs to taxpayers in the long run. Over the last decade or so, the U.S. Congress has appropriated hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up after disasters, provide temporary housing, and repair public infrastructure like roads, schools and hospitals, but it hasn’t made substantial investments in mitigating for future events.

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