Life's a bitch and then you die, was what Americans used to say when I was a kid.

I remember that. I guess I haven't heard that phrase since high school. Maybe college. Also, "Life sucks and then you die."

The worst flooding that I've seen personally was probably during Hurricane Agnes. I was a very young kid, and my grandfather rescued a chipmunk from a bridge where the water had flooded both sides, leaving the chipmunk stranded in the center. No idea how he saw it, but he stopped the car, waded out and brought it off the bridge. We kept it as a pet for a while.

Of course Katrina and Helene have been more consequential, in terms of human impact. I think the situation was the same there as the post describes in Bulgaria. People solve problems. Not governments.