“At the time I thought government would help out,” Goodley said?

The financial mechanisms meant to help disaster victims – private insurance and government relief programs – have never covered all the costs of disaster, but now the pain is multiplying as the number of costly disasters in the U.S.

Carolyn Kousky, a disaster finance expert and executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Risk Center, said smaller events, like localized flooding, are also driving up costs.

From 1980 to 1984, its flood insurance program averaged annual payouts of about $89 million, adjusted for inflation.

“There’s now widespread recognition that this isn’t a one-off thing, that we are on a trajectory of ever-increasing risk,” Kousky said.

When disaster strikes, there are typically four ways a home or business owner can recover, Kousky said: insurance, government relief, personal savings, or a personal loan.

Experts say vulnerable households getting hit harder by natural disasters is an ongoing problem that needs addressing?

What makes matters worse now, said Jesse Keenan, a climate adaptation expert and professor at the School of Architecture at Tulane University, is that the increase in costly natural disasters is pushing beyond the country’s financial means to cope, from local governments to the federal budget.

“One of them was my office,” Ashby said.

Friends and neighbors lost their homes, and Ashby said many weren’t insured enough to cover the full costs of rebuilding.

“It’s insult to injury, because you think you’re protected, and you think you’re covered, while you’re out searching for all your stuff in the fields, or you’re looking at your house with its missing kitchen,” Ashby said.

Experts who study the insurance industry say they understand those frustrations, but they point to an underlying, unfortunate truth: Many natural disasters are simply too expensive to fully insure.

“Will insurance, and even can insurance, ever completely provide coverage in a meaningful way for natural disasters.

Hornstein said natural disasters such as tropical storms present “correlated risk,” which means they have the power to devastate wide swaths of policyholders, and thus wipe out insurance companies.

After a string of huge losses in the mid-20th century, companies stopped covering floods, leading to the creation of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program in 1968. .

That federally run program now provides more than 95% of all flood insurance policies in the U.S.

Still, many home and business owners remain uninsured or underinsured by the flood insurance program.

The house stood, they and their 5-year-old daughter were alive, but they would soon learn that neither insurance nor government disaster relief programs would help them.

The experience has left the community questioning the role of government to respond to natural disasters.

“We need to redefine, what is government responsibility?” said Linda May, a longtime Silverado resident who is also a former FEMA local fiscal chief.

Experts warn that even under the best circumstances, government relief programs won't make residents whole.

One reason, Elliott said, is that disaster relief funds often go to homeowners, particularly those who have insurance.

Asked about its programs, Anne Bink, associate administrator for FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, said the agency is working to improve. .

FEMA has expanded the types of documentation it accepts to verify homeownership or rental status, a hurdle Bink said can impact families whose homes have been passed down through generations

Small Business Association to streamline application processes, Bink said

“We see this as a culture shift,” Bink said

Experts acknowledged that, while there are ways to improve the country’s insurance and disaster relief programs, a holistic solution to the onslaught of climate change will require something bigger: getting out of harm’s way. 

Historically, about half of the money paid out under FEMA’s national flood insurance program – more than $12.5 billion as of 2016 – went to rebuilding properties that repeatedly flooded, according to Pew Charitable Trusts.