The total damage caused by all terrorist attacks, worldwide, in the 21st century probably amounts to the damage caused by an average year of Atlantic hurricanes. Add in the Pacific hurricane season, which is generally worse, and it's clear that hurricanes cause far more damage than terrorism does.

-the article at hand

PS: Also that extrapolation on death rates for Maria is extremely questionable as it’s been rising in Porto Rico for years. The increase from 2013 to 2014 is larger than the increase for 2016 to either 2017 or 2018. https://www.statista.com/statistics/580903/death-rate-in-pue... You can assume the only thing bad that happened was a hurricane, but the data really doesn’t support that.

The broader point I'm making is this: hurricanes in the SE US and the Caribbean are, to a large degree "expected" disasters. As such they can be planned for, and damage can be minimized. And, I believe what you want to say is that they aren't all that "bad" anymore because of proper disaster preparation.

I would agree that hurricanes shouldn't be all that devastating in effect. But the data shows, quite convincingly IMHO, that we aren't doing as good as we could be doing in actually preparing for them.

When it comes to hurricanes that equates to selecting evacuation routes and locations to shelter the storm etc. If needed they may help create such shelters, but that stuff really seems to be working well. What happens after the storm is largely a question of how well other organizations have done their job. Aka what percentage of homes are habitable translates into how many people FEMA needs to find shelter for.

However, that last bit is a real question. Do we ramp up FEMA’s ability to build temerity houses or reduce the need for such temporary houses? I think it’s clear FEMA could do a much better job in disaster aftermath, but for hurricanes I think that’s largely solving the wrong problem.

The point is there is only so much you CAN do to prevent damage from a hurricane but there is a lot you can do to prevent a terrorist attack.

Ever hear of something called an "earthquake"? Strikes with absolutely no warning, most of the US's tech hotspots are either right on top of a fault line, or in the path of a tsunami caused by one out in the ocean.

I'm sure you will be completely fine with the government continuing to earmark most FEMA funds for "counter-terrorism" when you're affected by one of these. Especially if it's in a year where the President has just drained most of the non-terror funds by swiping them for something else, like he did this year:

The Trump administration recently ordered FEMA to divert $44 billion from the agency’s disaster-relief fund to pay for federal unemployment benefits. The measure was a stopgap after Congress failed to enact another Covid-19 stimulus package. - the article at hand