It is sad that people have died and homes have been destroyed in Washington.

It is also sad that people/governments decide to build homes in cities on the coast that are below sea level, along known and active earthquake fault lines, below active volcanoes, deep in tinder-dry forests, below a mud-slide hill that has already given way multiple times before, etc. You can't avoid all hazards, but you think you'd be able to avoid the obviously predictable ones.