Hehe, not my car, I drive a mustang (It's the wife with the Expedition). But that's a LOT of sand to get moved around. As far as living on the water being crazy, it's very very rare that a hurricane that powerful passes over your home. As to a house being on pilings, those typically fare better than those built flat on the ground. When the sand under them is eroded, a piling house is fine, whereas a flat house crumbles. Not to mention much of the damage seen is from storm surge. Being on stilts makes it less likely that a storm surge is high enough to cause serious damage. As far as insurance goes, every area of our country has it's problems. In the SE, we get hurricanes, in the midwest, tornadoes. On the west coast, earthquakes, mudslides and forest fires, The NE is just too F'ing cold.

Keep in mind that some of the buildings in Pensacola that got destroyed were 150+ years old. To be around that long they must have been pretty good odds.

The Dome Home is pretty nifty (if a bit ugly). It's designed to withstand winds of up to 200 MPH. Wow. Some of it is made from steel reinforced concrete built in curves rather than straight walls. Some of it is built with the intention of breaking away in the event of a hurricane. Kindof the same idea as japanese homes being made of paper. If it get's destroyed every couple of years, make it out of something cheap and easily replaced.

All that being said, most of the homes built to the relatively new code were mostly unscathed. It was the older buildings that weren't so lucky. Also, I live in New Orleans, 10 feet below sea level. Between a large lake and the mouth of the mississippi river. When I lived uptown I was 2 blocks from the river. You literally had to look UP to see the ships passing. Guess what my flood insurance cost? ~$250 per year. Perhaps I shouldn't be so worried. The insurance companies aren't.