Bruce Schneider article claims people fear terrorism disproportionately to the risk because it is intentional and directed https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparati...

Not only that, it is the whole point of terrorism, to trigger psychological bugs in humans relating to risk assessment.

*schneier

The directness of terrorism causes us to overweight the risk.

The dam flooding isn't random, its an unfrequent event that will occur so it is something we should prepare for.

I’ve often wondered if it’s a similar incentive misalignment with executives and politicians that helps ignore these low frequency events.

CEOs are graded quarter-to-quarter and politicians every 2-4 years. Low probability events (plane crashes, infrastructure failures, etc.) may not ever happen during their tenure, incentivizing them to defund preparing for them to favor other programs, understanding full well they’re bound to occur