or government insurance should be illegal in ANY area that has experience a hurricane storm surge in recorded history.  The rich will buy up acres of damaged homes and build themselves small replaceable summer homes that they will self insure.
The dunes and marshes will return.

If we can bailout Wall St., we can save the coastal environment and ecosystem.

After that AP wire story, General Land Office Commissioner Patterson issued notice that the Texas Open Beaches Act (TOBA) would be suspended for 120 days, pending further study. The TOBA basically says that if a property or structure is in the submerged waters below the mean high water line, it becomes property of the State of Texas and must be removed.  The second main thrust is that new or reconstructed (more than 50% damaged) homes must be set-back from the vegetation line.

Well there's no beach and no vegetation line in many places, especially on Bolivar Peninsula.

Only two other states, have such a forceful law as TOBA, that requires public access to the beach, and essentially makes the beach up to the vegetation line a public easement. It's going to take a while to sort out what to do in light of Hurricane Ike.

So the commenter above, I'm baffled by the claim that (a) it should be illegal to rebuild even if legal under TOBA, and (b) that somehow the marches and swamps would miraculously come back.  Katrina showed up that a hurricane can tear up miles and miles of swamp and barrier island environment. Nothing comes back. It's just underwater.

Many do want to rethink coastal development in light of Ike, however, a very healthy thing. What many enviros fear, on the other hand, is that is the TOBA is opened up for revision, it would be gutted by "all those rich people." -sam