45 years ago I watched a film about the hazards of building in a flood plain. St Louis was featured in part of it. St Louis got part of the message and has built 'pretty good walls' to help control the dangers of building where they shouldn't.
Other smaller towns in the area could not spend that level of money, so every few years we read about them.
The same basic warnings apply to building on landslide-prone hills, in areas where wild fires are likely, on coastlines subject to hurricanes and on earthquake faults.

I do understand that not all problems are evident when building is planned, but desire for 'that special place' and population pressure.... along with developer hype.... will keep us in news stories and provide jobs for rescue teams.