In the summer of 2017, Donald Trump stood in the lobby of Trump Tower and declared he would heal a “massive self-inflicted wound on our country” by eliminating red tape that he said was making construction in America an arduous, expensive process.

One policy he eradicated that day was a set of standards aimed at ensuring that anything built with taxpayer money — including hospitals, sewage treatment plants, bridges and libraries — could withstand flooding and rising seas caused by climate change.

Seven years later and in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton, federal officials and flood experts say Trump’s decision to roll back those federal infrastructure standards has had financial ramifications. Those are just starting to come into view as officials continue to tally the damage from the storms.

According to state and federal data, at least five water treatment plants in Florida that were in the path of Helene and Milton were exempt from tougher national building standards and sustained damage from the hurricane ranging from water line breaks to power losses. In total, they were funded with about $200 million in federal spending.

Another seven water plants across the Southeast that together received more than $100 million in federal funding were built to lower flood standards and didn’t receive damage during Helene or Milton. But the plants are considered at high risk for damage in the future, and what worries experts is how many crucial infrastructure plants are similarly exposed.

“We can definitively say that risk increased,” said Alice C. Hill, a senior fellow in energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The federal government continues to invest in infrastructure destined to fail in the light of worsening climate impacts.”