In most of these places you describe, there's a balance of risk vs reward to consider. Most of what I assume you would consider 'safe' places to live, are not very attractive ones from any other standpoint, primarily because the landscape is never being refreshed by geographical change. The most fertile soils on earth are found more often than not in seismically unstable regions, particularly those of the volcanic variety. Most cities in the world have risen on coastlines and on the backs of large rivers, because water is the font of life on earth, and very, very few forms of life can thrive without easy access to lots of it. Hell, if the human race had followed your line of thinking, avoiding any area of settlement that is at risk from severe flooding, nobody ever would have set up shop on the banks of the Nile, and civilisation as we know it would never have happened.
You're also making the idea of relocating entire families and livelihoods to safer locations sound a lot more feasible than it is. Millions of people live in the South of England, most of which is very low lying (and getting lower all the time thanks to tangential geological reasons I'm not going to get into right now) and prone to flooding (surprise surprise, you also find the majority of England's most fertile land here). Are you suggesting that there should be an exodus of millions of people to Yorkshire? I'm actually not sure who would be more opposed to that idea, us, or the people who already live in Yorkshire...
If there's anyone to blame for these recent floods, it's mercenary property developers who insist on unchecked building on all the southern flood plains, so that the water has nowhere to drain when we get heavy rains such as this; as well as the government for a) letting them, and b) not putting the necessary resources into flood defences when they do. Even then though, it's not as if they are unaware or uncaring of the problem. It's an occupational hazard of living on a small island with an expanding property market. The people who certainly are not at fault though, are the people who 'choose' to live in these areas, and have their homes and livelihoods destroyed because the climate decides it's going to rain solidly for a month and a half.