Well, because this is roleplay and not a game, as so many people say, perhaps the GM/coGM can PM the people that would be most involved, and talk to them about the disaster or somesuch, so that it happens in a very story-line fashion, rather than a more game-breaking fashion that might happen- more like an electrical circuit blowing an entire energy network out, between the solar panels and the batteries, a mere day before a solar eclipse in a colonization game, rather than an Ion Storm in Tiberium Sun right when you started.