Twenty years ago, Hurricane Andrew, a storm larger than Katrina and one of the most powerful hurricanes in American history, slashed across Florida and the Gulf, killing dozens, leaving 175,000 people homeless and $46 billion in damages. Sadly, we didn’t learn our lesson.

We didn’t take enough steps to prepare well for “the next big one.” Thirteen years later, Hurricane Katrina savaged Louisiana, and three years after that, Hurricane Ike devastated Texas.

Why do we keep waiting for “the next big one,” and doing little to prepare and protect our communities?

Emergency-management professionals do an extraordinary job, and we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. However, when it comes to building a better catastroph- management system, we seem to tinker on the margins. In particular, when it comes to shoring up the financial infrastructure that supports homeowners, communities and insurers, people in catastrophe-prone areas are still not ready and are no better off than we were when Andrew struck. Indeed, given the global economic woes that we face, we may even be worse off than we were 20 years ago.

The economic consequences of failing to take sensible actions to strengthen the financial infrastructure that protects America’s homeowners could be devastating. Additionally, taxpayers will no longer be able to come to the financial rescue as they customarily have — because the cost has become unacceptable and because Congress declared an end to blank-check bailouts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling agreement. Even Congress had to recognize that the old system of opening the taxpayer spigot for debt-financed bailouts after major catastrophes was fiscally irresponsible and not a sustainable or sensible policy.

So what can we do?

Legislation to build a better catastrophe-management system and strengthen America’s financial infrastructure for mega-catastrophes has received broad geographic and bipartisan support, but has not yet been sent to the president. ProtectingAmerica.org stood in support of legislation that passed the House of Representatives in 2007 and the House Financial Services Committee in 2010 with bipartisan sponsorship by members from more than 30 states. The challenge is twofold now: to act before the next major catastrophic hurricane (or earthquake) and to fill the financial vacuum left by the debt-ceiling agreement.

The solution we support would result in a better and more proactive approach and leverage a stronger public-private partnership. This approach would strengthen America’s financial infrastructure by building a privately-funded national catastrophe fund. It would be publicly administered, operate on a tax-exempt and nonprofit basis, and require private insurance companies to fund it. It would provide more reliable protection at lower cost for consumers and add capacity and provide more stability to the market. No taxpayer dollars would be used to build up the fund, and the law would protect taxpayers from the inevitable after-the-fact bailout we rely too much on today.

The catastrophe fund would help ensure that first responders are fully prepared and equipped to respond during those crucial early hours after an earthquake strikes. It would also leverage state participation to support better land use policies and mitigation efforts to reduce our vulnerability.

Smart people plan and prepare for the inevitable. The time to act is now, before it is too late.

James Lee Witt is chairman of Witt Associates, a public-safety and crisis-management consulting firm, and was director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Clinton. Admiral James Loy is senior counselor at The Cohen Group and was commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard and deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush. They are co-chairs of ProtectingAmerica.org.