That's exactly what happened here. It took 5 years for them to just to rebuild the courthouse, a small & square municipal building. But still nothing exists where downtown & the entire neighborhood before it stood, about 3-4 blocks long.
Want to know something fucked up? As soon as FEMA arrived here, they tried to stop local churches collecting private donations, even the ones which had been completely or partially destroyed. I stopped at one of the water & ration distribution points to donate bottled water, and tried to lay a hundo on the deacon before I left.
He hurriedly stopped me, asked me over to his truck, and told me to write my details down. As I did, he pointed out the FEMA supervisor standing nearby and told me they weren't allowing private donations, because FEMA was supposed to be helping. When I finished writing, I had to slide the bill under the paper and pass it to him, which both unsettled & pissed me off. It felt like a dystopian drug-deal, which it shouldn't have.
Later on I got a handwritten thank-you note from the pastor, which made me feel a little better about it. But what still infuriates a lot of us is that FEMA never followed through on their end, and a lot of people without insurance never got shit from them. Hell, there's people still living in FEMA trailers, which is a whole different fucked-up thing too.
And just when I had hope you weren't a total loss. Good job, fucking cockgobbler; God remembers shit like that.