It seems like 2017 has been a disastrous year with one natural catastrophe after another.

As hurricanes pummeled Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean with flooding and devastation, the western United States has been dealing with wildfires a good portion of this summer. Thousands of acres have been scorched. The aftermath and cost of these natural disasters has been mind-blowing. It will take years to overcome and rebuild.

The combined tab from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma is expected to hit $200 billion or more. While the federal government is expected to pay most of that, the affected state and local governments have to start paying for recovery now and eventually could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.

How much money states have set aside for such disasters varies. California is among the states with a dedicated disaster fund — for fighting wildfires — but already has burned through more than half the $427 million it set aside this year, with Southern California’s fearsome Santa Ana wind season looming.

In Montana, where wildfires raged across the state this summer, the firefighting costs so far have exceeded the amount set aside in a special disaster fund by $20 million.

Most states, however, must rely on the federal government for help. Mississippi is among the top five states to have requested and received federal assistance. From 1999 to 2015, Mississippi received $4,180,836,633 at an annual average of $245,931,567. Most federal money came after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

But the federal share might be changing.

President Donald Trump’s budget proposal calls for cutting billions of dollars from agencies involved in disaster management. At the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Trump has proposed cutting the disaster relief budget by $667 million, targeting grants that help state and local governments prepare for natural disasters.

It appears the biggest challenge is for state and local governments to set aside more funds in the event of the natural disaster that is most certainly to come, rather than gamble that it won’t ever happen.