If they are still struggling to make the necessary repairs to basic infrastructure, then strengthening their resilience to natural disasters arguably becomes even more of an uphill struggle.
The first is to lend its authority to the mundane but vital job of infrastructure repair, including the restoration of basic utilities as well as rail and subway lines.
The alleged misappropriation of funds by Palmer and his nephew Clive Mensink, the managing director of QN, took place alongside neglect of basic repairs and maintenance which led to safety and environmental concerns at the Yabulu refinery.
Most estimates put the cost of basic repairs at more than $2 trillion, and that does not even include long-range upgrades to the electrical grid, storm protection and mass transit.
It will also make the Highways Agency, which manages Britain's trunk roads, into a government-owned body with guaranteed funding.Part of the challenge for the next government is working out how to pay for big projects such as HS2 without neglecting the sort of basic repairs to roads and railways which do not entail ribbon-cutting but which, if not done, infuriate voters.
Lack of basic repairs before the storm contributed to roads and bridges being washed away there.
The cost of basic home repairs, like fixing a broken window, may be deducted, and larger home improvements, anything that "extends the life of the house," said Greg Rosica, a partner at Ernst & Young, may also be depreciated over several years.
She is still an artist as well as a musician — and a seamstress and an avid reader and an environmentalist and someone capable of basic car repair.
In his new Netflix comedy special, "Talking for Clapping," which premieres April 22, Oswalt, 47, laments his lack of basic home repair skills, and how he is presented on his birthday with a mountain bike instead of allowing his desired slide into slothdom.
Former US president Bill Clinton subscribed to a modern form of it when he said: "I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work".
Then they realized that they were facing an engineering problem that required a repair to the basic infrastructure of the sandwich.
