Can megascale engineering prevent disasters?

We know the Yellowstone Caldera will blow someday, we know the Canary islands will send a giant tsunami someday, knowing all this, with our current state of engineering , can we stop the hand of mother nature slapping us in the face? In a relatively affordable way when possible, after all everybody wants disasters not to happen, but nobody wants to pay....

Let's hear them ideas.....

Personally i am toying with the idea of wave deflectors, concrete walls placed on the seabottom in curved angles in the path of the Viaja Cumbre landslide, such that the waves will be bend/guided into another direction, maybe send them all to antarctica instead of the north and south american coasts.....




[edit on 6-1-2005 by Countermeasures]

Hi Countermeasures,
I 've had the same or similar idea. I wasn't thinking on something on big-scale-engineering, rather small scale. Would it be possible to build safe houses that can withstand force of the for example tsunami. If not all house then at least the basement, waterproof too, at least one room? Why not? And that's pretty low tech if you ask me! However in combination with early warning system it could save lives.
Have you seen what have they done in Japan? I've seen it on tv once, a great wall around or at one side (I'm not sure) of the island, as a shield against tsunami. Anyone knows if it passed the test?
In large-small scale engineering I see two majos issues, one is money and another is actual engineering.