Are there any stories told by Native North Americans involving large natural disasters? If so; what were some of the theories on the origins of the disasters/precautions they took/predictions/warnings to youth/etc...

In Skull Wars by David Hurst Thomas he talks about a 7,400 year old oral story that survived to the 1800s when an American soldier wrote it down. I'll lift the passage which starts on page 249.

Chief Lalek begins the Klamath story like this: "A long time ago, so long that you cannot count it the white man ran wild in the woods and my people lived in rock-built houses. In that time, long ago, before the stars fell, the spirits of the earth and the sky, the spirits of the sea and the mountains, often came and talked with my people..." Lalek then described the spirits living inside Mount Mazama and its sister mountain, Mount Shasta. The two massive peaks had openings that led to a lower world through which the spirits could pass. The Chief of the Below-World loved a Klamath chief's daughter, Loha, and demanded that she marry him. When this amorous overture was rebuked, the result did not sit well with the spirit, who threatened total destruction of the people as revenge. "Raging and thundering," the story went, "he rushed up through the opening and stood on top of his mountain," terrorizing the people below.

At this point, the spirit of Mount Shasta intervened as a cloud appeared over the peak of Shasta, and the two mountains engaged in a horrible combat: "Red-hot rocks as large as hills hurled through the skies. Burning ashes fell like rain. The chief of the Below-World (Mazama) spewed fire from its mouth. Like an ocean of flame it devoured the forests on the mountains and in the valleys. On and on the Curse of Fire swept until it reached the homes of the people. Fleeing in terror before it, the people found refuge in the waters of Klamath Lake."

The Klamaths then decided that someone should be sacrificed to calm the chaos. Two medicine men climbed Mount Mazama and jumped into the caldera: "Once more the mountains shook. This time the Chief of the Below-World was driven into his home and the top of the mountain fell upon him. When the morning sun arose, the high mountain was gone... for many years, rain fell in torrents and filled the great hole that was made when the mountain fell..."

Chief Lalek ended his story this way: "Now you understand why my people never visit the lake. Down through the ages we have this story. From father to son has come the warning, "look not upon the place... for it means death or everlasting sorrow."

Deloria emphasizes the parallels between the pre-1865 Klamath account-recorded decades before the first scientist explored Crater Lake-and the modern geological explanation, which dates only to the 1920s. In both, Mount Mazama was destroyed in a catastrophic explosion, characterized by superheated avalanches, a massive cloud of volcanic dust, the dramatic collapse of the peak into the belly of the mountain, and the formation of a new deepwater lake atop the truncated mountain.

Skulls Wars came out during the controversy regarding the Kennewick Man and the implementation of NAGPRA and who has claims to the remains since they are so old (about 9,000 years old). Thomas talks a lot about Native American claims to the land and illustrates these claims with such things such as the oral story I copied above. Even in 1996 when this book was published not everyone was convinced Native Americans had been here as long as they have and with initial examinations of the Kennewick Man having "caucasoid" cranial features it flared the dying embers of those who still thought that early in history there may have been other 'races' before Native Americans arrived later.