The framework · one of five quadrants
Q2 · The CoconutThe Coconut
The rare, high-impact event that was always coming, and was always going to be called unforeseeable afterwards.
The hazard was known. Its size was not. The event lands far out in a tail nobody had priced, bigger than anything in the record the defences were built against, and being possible was never enough to fund the defence.
How to spot it. Ask what the defences were sized against, then ask what the worst case on record actually is. The gap between those two is this quadrant.
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14Events in this quadrant
Every event filed in Q2 The Coconut
- Los Angeles wildfires2025Santa Ana winds drove two fires through Palisades and Altadena.
- Myanmar earthquake2025M7.7 on the well-known Sagaing Fault; unreinforced homes collapsed.
- Valencia DANA floods2024A known flash-flood phenomenon; the regional alert went out hours too late.
- Turkey-Syria earthquakes2023Twin M7.8 quakes; building-code amnesties left 13M non-compliant structures.
- Derna dam collapses2023Two neglected dams burst overnight after explicit published warnings.
- Maui / Lahaina wildfire2023A downed power line in dry grass consumed historic Lahaina.
- Al Haouz earthquake2023A moderate quake killed thousands because mudbrick homes had no survival voids.
- Pakistan monsoon floods2022Record monsoon submerged a third of the country built on floodplains.
- Champlain Towers collapse2021The concrete corrosion was documented years earlier, never repaired, and the tower pancaked overnight.
- Ahr Valley floods2021A known flood-prone valley; warnings came late and hazard maps underestimated it.
- Beirut port explosion20202,750t of ammonium nitrate sat unsecured for six years, then detonated.
- Vizag styrene leak2020A refrigeration failure released a neurotoxin over villages at a rushed restart.
- 2010 Haiti Earthquake2010Scientists forecast a 7.2 on the fault in 2008. Haiti had no building code. The quake came in 2010.
- Sichuan earthquake2008Known quake zone; tofu-dreg schools turned a tail into a certainty.
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