Wasn’t there some massive icedam caused lake that was the size of basically the entire Pacific Northwest and it flooded out in a matter of years? And nobody believed that could happen.
Right, figuring that out was an important step in our appreciation that catastrophes happen and are impactful on a large scale, you know, not just little things that get covered up by longer-term, consistent processes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_Lake_Missoula
It's why western Washington state is all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_scablands