The most important lesson from the Asian tsunami is that disease epidemics can be prevented by public health intervention. Unfortunately, most flooding events, and other conditions that promote infectious disease epidemics, do not receive the same global media attention. A tsunami captures the imagination of the world in a way that weeks of rainfall in the Sudan or a rise in sea surface temperature cannot. However, if climatologic data can be used to predict future disease outbreaks, public health interventions can be mobilized in a more timely and proactive manner.