Post Hurricane HUGO, and other storms of the last 20 years, FEMA and the states began to get serious about flood elevation related building requirements. Buildings in areas like ours , close to the water and at low MSL elevations, must be raised and built to FEMA requirements or no insurance, no mortage, no building permits. Most of the beach houses I see damaged from Sandy, were un-elevated bungalows (like the one I grew up in in Brooklyn NY). I noticed the same thing post Katrina, about many houses in New Orleans.
Hopefully, post storm reconstruction will require better building.