As weather and climate disasters costing over $1 billion in damages become regular occurrences in the United States, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that 77% of Americans say stricter building standards are a good idea for communities at high risk of extreme weather. These findings come amid conversations about scaling back the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in setting standards and working with states to handle disaster response.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans’ attitudes toward and experiences with extreme weather. For this analysis, we surveyed 5,085 U.S. adults from April 28 to May 4, 2025.

Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Interviews were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this report, the topline and the survey methodology.