"My question is why aren't there any of these dangerous volcanoes and earthquakes in places no one really cares about..."

Yes, I know that the rest of this question is mischievously ironic - but it remains an interesting question all the same.

The thing is, the more people we cram onto the planet, the more of them are in the way when natural disasters happen. Ten thousand years ago Hurricane Katrina would have merely slammed into rather a lot of marshy ground. And I would guess that any Native Americans in the area would have been highly mobile, and very clued up about hurricanes, and would have been watching events from high ground. Could our ancestors read the signs connected with imminent earthquakes and/ volcanic eruptions? Possibly - but this may be an over-romantic view. Certainly fewer people would have died - purely because there were fewer people around.