Can someone explain to me, what is the importance of knowing about the Black Hole?

Just watched an hour show on discovery channel about the Black Hole. After it was over, I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would dedicate their lives to try to figure out how and why does it work the way it does. Its not as if a black hole will suddenly appear one day and an early warning system can be set up and all the people on the planet can escape to another planet just in the nick of time. So why do scientist care about something so far off when we have problems here that can be worked on and results seen in our generations or at least the next few generations.