Comment: From an economic perspective

The Federal Government is subsidizing part of the total cost of living on the coast. Like Ron Paul has pointed out before, in the free market, insurance would likely be refused, or be very expensive, for those who live in an area with high hurricane risk (the Gulf coast, in particular).

So, economically, people are able to build their houses in hurricane-prone areas in larger numbers, because the Federal Government will essentially bail them out when disaster strikes.

Also, if the true costs (via risks) were accounted for, when those houses were built, money would either be put away for disasters in the future, or insurance would cater for this possibility, whether that was at the personal, county, city, or state level.

Also, if people (or states, or businesses etc) had to 'fend for themselves' in a disaster, we might see houses being built there with more solid foundations (or the technology develop to make that possible in the first place).

A question for you:
Why should the rest of the citizens in the other States be forced to relinquish their resources, in order to subsidize the cost of someone else's lifestyle?