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The National Flood Insurance Program is a valuable tool in addressing the losses incurred throughout this country due to floods. It assures that businesses and families have access to affordable flood insurance that would not be available on the open market.

Today more than 20,000 communities participate in the National Flood Insurance Program. More than 90 insurance companies sell and service flood service insurance. There are more than four million policies covering the total of $800 billion.

I think the federal flood insurance program is actuarially unsound and renders private insurance not viable, thereby needing an overhaul going forward.

Homeowners and business owners across the country agreed to pay premiums, communities agreed to adopt building codes to mitigate flood dangers, and the Federal Government agreed to provide insurance coverage to policyholders after a disaster.

I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid.

In 2003, I introduced and passed The Tornado Shelters Act, which allows local governments to use Community Development Block Grant funds to construct storm shelters in manufactured housing communities.

Second, there are two problems with respect to mobile homes in particular. One is we obviously don't want to put them in a flood plain, because if there's another flood, you're going to lose the mobile home.

We have a plan that creates universal access programs at the state level which allows folks to access insurance if they're denied by their insurer.

In more than 500 instances, from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.

No one can prevent hurricanes, but prosperous communities are much better able to withstand them than poor ones.