It's been the norm forever.  Hurricanes have pounded the east and gulf coasts forever.  

The difference is we've jammed more and more people into those areas, and built $trillions worth of buildings and development in the path.  Florida population, for instance, was 500k in 1900, then 2.7M by 1950.  Now it's a whopping 20M.

Mother nature has barely changed at all.  But mankind sure has.  It's like we're in a race to see how quickly we can overpopulate the planet.