What To Do When Tragedy Comes?

There is a line from an old song which goes, "If the Lord be willing, and the creek don't rise."  While it was neither an English major nor a theologian who wrote those lines, it does bring a powerful question into focus:  "To what extent does God will that the creek does not rise?"  And there's a second, "Why doesn't God stop it when the creek turns into a river that turns into a flood?"