These days, the awareness for risks to the international community, the private sector and to society as a whole seems to have grown tremendously. Politicians as well as scientists, managers as well as insurance companies construe a picture of entire awareness of the problem. They claim new frameworks and strategies in order to reduce risk and risk behavior. It is with this in mind where we would like to start in looking back in time and ask of how this consciousness of risk due to natural disasters has grown over time. We ask how people ensured to function during and in the aftermath of a disaster, and furthermore whether or not this generated increased awareness for a disaster management (economically, socially, technologically). This aims toward the question of increased significance of a robust knowledge of risk and disasters over the decades and on a global level.