Managing Hurricane (And Other Natural Disaster) Risk

With the data showing that hurricanes are the most likely and serious of all of these disasters, we return to Hurricane Harvey. No one living in Texas—especially in the cities of Houston, Port Arthur, Bridge City, Rockport, Wharton, Conroe, Port Aransas, and Victoria, or more generally in the counties of Harris, Aransas, Nueces, Jefferson, Orange, Victoria, Calhoun, Matagorda, Brazoria, Galveston, Fort Bend, Montgomery, and Wharton—needs to be told that the U.S. needs a better approach to managing hurricane and other natural disaster risk, both in terms of pre-disaster planning and post-disaster recovery. Texans are not alone, as survivors of Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Irma, Maria, Florence, Michael, and others will be quick to agree. This Article primarily examines hurricane risk through the optic of insurance, but, as the discussion will show, a much larger lens is needed if we are to have a chance of improving our management of this enormous, and growing, problem.