Welcome to The Long Lede. I am Harriet Ngata, and this is slow news: one story, told properly, once a month. A year ago a small town was on every screen for about a week. A river rose, streets became canals, a woman was rescued from a roof and became the image of the whole event. Then the water went down and so did the coverage. I went back. I spent three weeks there, I read a year of council minutes, I followed the relief fund through the public accounts, and I knocked on the doors of the people who were quoted once and never called again. Some of what I found is encouraging. Some of it is not. All of it is sourced. Settle in, this one takes a while. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.