Mother Nature cannot defend herself when she is blamed for all the damages that come from wind, hail, lightning, rain, etc. So let's stop blaming disaster damages and displacements on Mother Nature and admit that the culprit is us, and where and how we choose to build homes and businesses. 

See this Atlantic magazine article, Midwestern Flooding Isn’t a Natural Disaster. We have not reached the decision point yet where we acknowledge that we cannot engineer ourselves out of risk. Mother Nature is, after all, a "force of nature" that in the end cannot be tamed to the point of zero risk. Our feeble human efforts may withstand everyday pressures of rain and flooding, but mega events are those that will "stick it to us" and everyone will decry our failures to tame the waters. 

The problem comes when every community thinks they are the exception to the above rule. Eventually their assumptions will be tested and the failure to plan for disasters will be the failure that impacts people and their lives. The American spirit that says, "We will rebuild!" needs to be replaced with "We will rebuild — somewhere else!"

Claire Rubin, who has seen her fair share of disasters, shared the link above.