TO whom did America, the world’s sole remaining superpower, turn when it wanted advice on handling floods? Not the United Nations, nor tsunami-hit countries but council officials in landlocked Dudley, the unofficial capital of the Black Country.

After Hurricane Katrina wreaked devastation in New Orleans, the alert went out among America’s emergency planners to find exemplary experts on coping with disasters.

A senior officer in the US Secret Service chose Dudley because it was recommended by a friend of hers who worked at Dudley’s Co-operative Funeral Services. The Co-op is contracted by the council to remove bodies in the event of a terrorist strike on the West Midlands or some other disaster.

Andrew Sparke, the chief executive of the council, was invited to fly to Washington to brief senior figures from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which has borne much of the criticism for the lack of response to Katrina. Fema has 3,000 employees and a budget of $1 billion; Dudley’s emergency planning team has just three and can spend £250,000.

During his three-day stay in the American capital, Sparke met the assistant directors of both the secret service and the Department of Homeland Security, was given an insight into the training of agents and enjoyed a behind-the-scenes tour of the White House. “The invitation came as a bit of a surprise,” he said this weekend. “But it was a great compliment to our emergency planning team for all their hard work and great ideas. We were picked as a council that could offer advice and help and it is good to know that Dudley is leading the way in this field.”

Dudley’s last “disaster” in living memory was when Dudley Town’s football ground subsided into a limestone mine 21 years ago. Nobody was hurt but the Robins, as the team are known, had to find a new ground.

The Americans are understood to have been particularly impressed by Dudley’s plans for dealing with mass casualties, especially the efficient liaison between the council and the Co-op.

Senior figures from Fema are due to arrive in Dudley on September 29 as guests of honour at an emergency planning meeting, while members of the council are planning to head off for another trip to America in March.

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, Bush praised Michael Brown, director of Fema, with the words, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” But days later Brown stepped down amid claims the authorities had failed to grasp the scale of the disaster.

“When Fema were taking a bit of a battering post-Katrina, they were asking whether they should be looking at practice in other countries,” said Sparke.

“That’s why they came to us. Because their system is totally privatised they were interested in seeing how the public sector and the private sector work together and how we would cope in an emergency situation.”

Craig Mastapeter, an emergency planner at Fema, said: “One of the most critical things we learnt from Hurricane Katrina was that we as a country need to be prepared. In order to do that we need to work closely with foreign counterparts like Dudley council.”

In a recent council report, Ian Skidmore, the emergency planning officer, said that over the past four years comprehensive plans had been drawn up to prepare Dudley for “those major incidents which could befall the community . . . either from natural, man-made disasters or terrorism within the borough”.

The council has made contingency plans with utilities including electricity, gas, water, telecommunications, railways and highways.

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