"meanwhile, every single one of them rips the hell out of Cuba, Trinadad/Tobago, Haiti, the Bahamas, the Yucutan Peninsula, etc."

--Just a note here, I live in Trinidad, hurricanes barely do any damage. They usually go north of us and destroy Grenada or something..

Of course, I'm moving to Grenada soon, so call me crazy.

 

To respond to your comment about people along the gulf coast needing to pull up stakes and move away, if people did that, 3/4 of the US would be completely empty. The entire east coast is vulnerable to hurricanes, the Mississippi river floods out that area of the US on a nearly yearly basis, and tornadoes regularly ravage the mid west. You west coasterners live on no less than 3 major fault lines that'll break eventually, plus you seem to get raging wildfires pretty regularly. Where else is there to live that isn't a life threatening area in one way or another? There's a strip of land directly west of the Appalachians that isn't at or near a major 'danger zone' that we could all cram into, but I'll live downstream of danger, thanks.

 

Yes, but there's a difference between potential for disaster, and the certainty of it, which seems to be the case for the gulf coast over the next decade or two. Not that we can count on every year being as destructive as this year was, forecasts of continued global warming and ocean currents aren't exact enough for that.

I seem to recall some towns in the midwest basins being abandoned a few years ago, after the Mississippi flooded like 3x in 5 years and completely inundated the same towns every time, but no one really wanted to live there anyway. As you say, people are going to live where they enjoy living, and simply continue to hope natural disasters strike someone else. And if somewhere is desireable enough, like the Florida Keys apparently are, they'll return there even if they have to abandon their boarded up homes 3 or 4x every fall. I wouldn't do it, but I guess they think it's worth it.