As communities devastated by the catastrophic flooding in parts of western Europe start picking up the pieces, they are wondering how it all went so wrong, so fast. After all, Europe has a world-leading warning system that issued regular alerts for days before floods engulfed entire villages.As communities devastated by the catastrophic flooding in parts of western Europe start picking up the pieces, they are wondering how it all went so wrong, so fast. After all, Europe has a world-leading warning system that issued regular alerts for days before floods engulfed entire villages.