For starters, insurance companies which cover the perils of earthquake, floodings, etc are highly motivated to cultivate this data themselves, and create alert systems. As it is, there are companies who make a very fine return by packaging up government data and selling it to insurance companies, and their returns are subsidized because they are getting their data for "free", where here "free" means that you pay for their input costs via your taxes (companies like RMS who sell earthquake modelling systems to insurance companies). In fact, the entire idea for "fire departments" started with insurance companies, who had their own fire departments and would only respond to those fires affecting or threatening their customers (their customers were given plaques to hang outside their homes to inform the fire department they were covered).
In general, a lot of government policy surrounding catastrophe management actively encourages people to put themselves in harms way. For example, hurricane Katrina could not have done anywhere near the damage to property and lives in the absence of a government flood insurance pool, because no private market participants were willing to offer flood insurance in those regions where there was little doubt a significant flood/hurricane event would occur, and lenders are unwilling to lend to borrowers who cannot obtain insurance to protect the asset against which the loan is being made - the vast majority of people simply would be unable to live in ultra high risk areas. This was seen as a "problem", and "fixed" with a taxpayer funded federal flood insurance pool, which got the lenders lending and the people building houses and living in very dangerous areas. The same things goes on in California with earthquake insurance pools and regulations. And what does the government do when catastrophe strikes and cities are destroyed (as they are predicted to be by that same government's scientists)? They commit to use taxpayer money to rebuild in the very same spot! It is a "bailout", pure and simple.
I guess some people are comfortable with the idea that they (and their neighbors, who may not agree) should be forced to pay for the imprudent decision of another person who chooses to live in a high hazard zone, but it would be far less likely for a person to be able to live in those kinds of areas absent government intervention.
In short, there are a lot of very negative consequences, and more importantly, lives lost, because of government's role here. And while I can appreciate the self-interested appeal of forcing people (because it is not voluntary) by way of government to pay for research you find interesting or useful, it is hard (for me, at least) to describe that as "fair".