When reminded, however, Niek remembers the 1953 flood. He heard about it. That year, on the night of 31 January to 1 February, a strong storm in the North Sea mixed with exceptionally high tides increased pressure on the dikes of the large polder islands of Zeeland, as well as on the shores of South Holland and North Brabant. Several dikes, which had not been maintained since the beginning of the Second World War, or not sufficiently so, gave way hundreds of meters. some were even totally submerged. Within two days, and following two high tides, the floods invaded nearly 2,000 km2 of land – that is 6% of the Dutch area of the time. Several Zeeland islands have been completely swallowed up. The human toll was terrible: more than 1,800 dead, more than 72,000 refugees. More than 40,000 head of cattle, cattle or pigs, were washed away.

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In Ouwerkerk, Zeeland, the Watersnoodmuseum commemorates this tragic event. It can be accessed via a small road on a dike several meters high, which hides the North Sea: when the tide is high, the road is below sea level. Jaap Schoof, manager of the museum’s Oral history project, explains how he escaped from the horror. "I remember the night the storm came. I was 8 years old, my parents were farmers in Zeeland. We were sleeping in the farm, which, as is always the case in the Netherlands, is built at a higher level than the land to protect them from floods.. The storm and rain were intense. Gradually, the waves invaded the fields below. For 24 hours, we heard the cows and horses howling. Then, gradually, all was quiet: all the animals had drowned. On the radio, we heard that a dike near the farm had given way to the force of the tide. The next day the water continued to rise, so we took refuge on the top floor of the house. Fortunately, fishermen came to save us. They put us in their boat and took us to Dordrecht, a nearby town that had been relatively untouched by the waves. There, I learned that my aunt and grandmother had drowned in the floods." 65 years later, Jaap Schoof fights back his tears. Dordrecht is located 15 kilometers from the Overdiepse polder.

 

The 1953 floods have been widely documented in a series of photographic reports signed Ed van der Elsken, Ed van Wijk, Ad Windig ... Often commissioned by the Dutch government, as poignant as they are treated aesthetically, these reports show, among other things, that rescue operations were supported by helicopters. For the first time, the technical possibilities allowed the Netherlands to act quickly in the face of this new submersion. The 1953 tsunami is just the latest in a long series of particularly deadly floods that have hit the Dutch shores since immemorial times. A fresco in the Watersnoodmuseum enumerates them, five or six per century ending each time with at least several dozen deaths, and up to several tens of thousands of deaths. Shortly before the year 1300, the most spectacular of them gave birth to the Zuydersee, the inland sea that separates Holland from Friesland.

 

With almost a third of their area located at or below sea level, the fight against rising waters was essential for the Netherlands’ existence. In 1293, they invented elected local assemblies, the "water committees" (waterschappen), to monitor the threat of the waves in the villages. Then, in the eighteenth century, they founded a "Royal Water Agency" (Rijkstwaterstaat) to coordinate the waterschappen efforts across the country. This permanent risk even influenced the imagination: so was created the character of little Hans Brinker, a young boy known for having saved his village by plugging a hole in a dike with his finger for a whole night. This children's tale is one of the most famous in the Netherlands, where several Hans Brinker statues can be found.

 

After the 1953 floods the Dutch state reacted swiftly. Under the impetus of the engineer Johan van Veen, the Rijkswaterstaat implemented a plan of gigantic works to secure the southern coast of the Netherlands. Built between 1957 and 1986 in the provinces of Zeeland and South Holland, where three major European rivers - the Rhine, the Meuse and the Scheldt - merge into a large delta to jump into the North Sea, this “Delta Plan” cost about 12 billion current euros. It involved building a dozen monumental interlinked works, whose main function is to prohibit the North Sea from overflowing into the most densely populated areas of the country. The Maeslantkering, a kind of double metal portico that can close to block access to the port of Rotterdam, is probably the most famous of these works. The Haaringvlietluizen, a gigantic removable concrete and steel lock blocking the North Sea access to Zeeland, is one of the most impressive.

 

The Hollandsche IJsselkering looks like two Tower Bridges on the IJssel River, five kilometers east of Rotterdam. It is both the oldest and the most ingenious of all: built in 1958, its various barriers rise and fall, either blocking the waves or allowing ships of all sizes to pass; they host a motor bridge as well as a maritime and fluvial traffic control station. "If the waves coming from the sea are ready to enter the IJssel, we are warned 24 hours in advance and can completely lower the barrier in about twenty minutes," says Jan van den Bogerd, an operator in charge of river traffic. And if the river overflows, could one also release its waves towards the sea? "Yes, we can do that too, but it takes much longer: the work was not designed for that".

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"The Delta Plan works were designed to address four main challenges," says Marjan Daenen, team leader at Haringvlietsluizen. "First, limit the mileage of the flood plains by blocking the access of the sea to the estuaries. Second, limit the strength of the waves by compartmentalizing the water. Third, respect the natural order by promoting the flow of aquatic animals and human beings. Finally, learn and benefit from experience by starting to build the smaller structure and ending with the largest.” "My grandfather had experienced the floods of 1953 and how strong the elements could be," adds Paul Fortuin, grandson of Johan van Veen and climate advisor at the Rijkswaterstaat. "He was not trying to build against nature, but with it. These large structures, which have managed to preserve or even foster biodiversity in these fragile brackish environments, have also proved their effectiveness against climate change: despite several threatening storms in recent decades, in 1991 for example, there has been no sea flood since their construction."