What potential natural disasters (if more than one) have been prevented?

Prior to their occurrence ? How could they have been prevented ?

I guess with imagination, like every solution?

Netherland’s dikes prevent a lot of flooding.

The lightning rod has a place in the classification of miracle prevention inventions. Without it, growing cities would have seen events like the Chicago fire. That one was not lightning related, but it reached that kind of devastation.

Forest fires.

Just need to rake the leaves more.~

Switching from gas lighting to incandescent or fluorescent or L.E.D. lighting has stopped many city wide devastating fires.

Last night, I went outside and raised my arm to the skies and said “no asteroids will land on earth tonight!” and then I went inside.

This morning, guess what – no asteroids had landed! So you could say that I prevented at least one.

I believe we have the power to slow or stop global warming, but everyone is focused on bandaids.

Rickets and polio in the western hemisphere.
Pellagra disease was eliminated by good nutrition practices.

Fighting to prevent the creation of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository has thus far prevented what will one day be one of the most colossal natural disasters which has ever befallen humanity.

Yucca Mountain is being turned into a facility to hold all the nuclear waste Amerika produces. All of it. Every gram. Except it was chosen as a location because some very rich men got even richer, not because it made any sense, and sits on tectonically active ground, in one of the most seismically-active states in Amerika.

Furthermore, the location is geologically unstable, and while the science says it will be okay for the 10,000 years it’s intended to last, the nuclear waste will remain unimaginably dangerous for millions of years. One day, if the Yucca Mountain facility is allowed to open, our descendants will experience a major seismic event which will throw open the gates of Hell – and the gods help them if they are no longer a technological civilization capable of dealing with it.

Thus far, however, the hard work of a lot of environmentalists, First Nations activists, and other sane individuals have prevented this major natural disaster in the making. Sadly, among a lot of other Obama-begun projects Ttump shit-canned when he took office, the Deep Borehole project (which is the only alternative to Yucca Mountain) was also unceremoniously axed.

Lighthouses prevented many disasters at sea.
The widespread use of seat belts has saved thousands of lives.

Penicillin

An early warning system saved millions in Chili with a tsunami warning.

@RedDeerGuy1 According to the NEJM and the Lancet, rickets has begun to appear again in the US in poor neighbourhoods. As Amerika turns into a developing nation with rising inequality, food deserts, and the disappearance of labour rights with the collapse of unionism, rickets is again on the rise. If anyone needed additional evidence that we have returned to 19th century industrial classism as we devolve back to feudal tyranny, this is it.

The only one I could think of was a volcano eruption in Iceland years ago. They couldn’t prevent the volcano from erupting, but the lava flow was headed toward the harbor and the village’s fishing industry would have been devastated. Fire crews, barges, etc….a massive effort was made to hose huge amounts of water into the lava flow hour after hour for I don’t know how many days. Eventually, the lava flow was stopped not far from where it would have entered the harbor. Here is the link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/photo/514394/

Amazing!

Thanks. I see some answers are about minimizing damage and/or alerting. But good to know nevertheless.
@Patty_Melt If you’re referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire if there was a lightening rod it would have been prevented? It wasn’t caused by lightening, right?

You can answer that yourself if you read what I wrote.

@Patty_Melt I’m trying to figure out how it’s related to ligthening.

I stated that the Chicago fire was not caused by lightning, but without lightning rods, growing cities would have seen comparable devastation. It is all right there. Repeating it is just redundant. I can’t make it clearer. I’m sorry you don’t understand, truly, but I put a disclaimer in my post.

I can understand if it were “smoke detectors”, for example, but I still don’t see why “lightening rod” if the cause was not lightening.

Smh

Ok, @Patty_Melt.

I think London has built flood gates to prevent the Thames flooding the city.

Sacremento hauled in tons of dirt and raised the entire “old town” up one full story in the 1800’s to avoid the Sacramento floods, and there is currently an extensive system of levees, by passes, dams and flood gates to try and control the river.