Prologue
As a whole, the Wizarding World is arrogant and views themselves as better than Muggles in every way. Most times this is somewhat accurate. After all, things which affect Muggles don’t concern them so much because of their Magic. They can Apparate safely in the worst blizzards while Muggles end up housebound. The only thing blizzards affect is owl post. It was the same for most natural events such as rain, heat, whatever. They didn’t need what Muggles did to stay comfortable or out of danger. However, in some vital areas they weren’t as well off.
Because of how natural events affected them, Muggles set up very sophisticated tracking, monitoring, and warning systems to aid them. Wizards didn’t have them because they weren’t as bothered. They also didn’t have the communication systems Muggles did which could warn in an instant and spread the word rapidly. While the Floo and Wireless were good, they weren’t on a par with Muggle communications. It also took time for people to get through to those who would disseminate the warnings. This left them at a disadvantage they couldn’t overcome when times were bad.
For those in the UK, such disasters were few and far in between. The last most could remember were the wars. As for the rest? They weren’t bothered. This would come to bite them in a huge way and leave their world scrambling.