This is the headline from this BBC report
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4210674.stm

I am proud to say that as a little old South African in a third world
country at the Southern tip of darkest Africa we had a devastating flood in
my little town in 2002.
The skies had not even cleared from the raging storm when the air force
choppers arrived in force.
They rescued those in need, brought in emergency personnel and special riot
police to prevent looting.
Although the flood put out water supplies, washed away our connecting roads,
power and sewerage systems, mighty teams of specialists arrived within hours
and all services were restored within 48 hours except the roads that took a
few days longer. The choppers brought in food until the roads were
reconstructed.

I felt very proud to be a South African at that time and was immensely
grateful for the smooth running and super national rescue effort that took
place seemingly so easily, like a well oiled machine.

What happened to mighty America...???
What did the Federal Emergency Management Agency do...???
Heads should roll for this debacle - it is inexcusable in a superpower with
all America's vast resources.

Hello, John --

I always enjoy your radio-related posts. I'm a little surprised to see
this post from you.

Of course, everyone in America is asking the question, "How could this
possibly have happened?" This precise eventuality has been discussed
widely in the last few years. When a more-active-than-usual hurricane
season was forecast for this year, there was lots of discussion of New
Orleans' exposed southeast flank -- there's levee protection from the
lake and the river, but no levees to stop a tidal surge from the ocean.
The proposed solution was to build an immense network of levees to the
southeast of the city, to complete the ring all the way around.

In the end, that wouldn't have helped, because it was the failure of an
existing levee that caused the problem. It wasn't the direct effect of
the hurricane -- the city actually did pretty well with that. But when
the levees broke, all bets were off.

There should have been a better contingency plan for the levees
breaking, sure -- but, let me ask you -- do levees ever break
unexpectedly in South Africa? Are all of your public works projects
flawless after being in existence for well over a hundred years? Can SA
spend billions to build levees which have a one-in-a-thousand chance of
ever being needed?

Also, John, when floods hit small towns in America, the rescue and aid
efforts are well-oiled and take place easily. It happens yearly, and
we're very proud of the efforts of all of our rescuers, both government
and private. I'm happy that it's the same for you in South Africa. How
about you report back to us after a South African city with a population
of 1.3 million, located in a basin 6 feet below sea level, and with few
ingress or egress routes, is suddenly submerged under 10-20 feet of
water, with no immediate way to pump it out? Oh, and it has to happen
immediately after a hurricane which knocks out all power and destroys
many of the already-limited ingress and egress routes. Let's compare
notes then.