AMSTERDAM: The Netherlands’ history is the tale of an endless battle against the sea. Now, the low-lying country wants to share its experiences with US regions devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Famed for clawing back land from an encroaching sea and building one of the world’s most formidable flood defence systems, the Netherlands is sending experts to the US Gulf Coast to help clean up after Katrina.
The Dutch Transport and Water Affairs Ministry said it had sent a team of water pumping experts to Pointe a la Hache, south of New Orleans, to help get rid of the water.
The Netherlands, much of which lies below sea level, suffered a similar calamity 52 years ago when hurricane-force winds and an exceptionally high tide breached the famed Dutch dikes in more than 450 places along the southwestern coastline.
More than 1,800 people were killed, many as they slept.
After ‘The Misery of 1953’, the worst flood in modern Dutch history, the country embarked on a major overhaul of its defence systems. Under the Delta Project, huge dikes were built and a complex system of floodgates created to keep the sea at bay.
“We are really safe,” Jan Kroos, head of the Netherlands’ Storm Surge Warning Service, told Reuters, adding that people from his office would travel to New Orleans within a month to share their experiences with US officials.
However, Hurricane Katrina has prompted the Dutch government to review its emergency plans in case of floods, and some experts say the country remains vulnerable.
“The Netherlands is not yet Delta safe. Fifteen per cent of our primary dike and dune system still does not meet the Delta (project) requirements and for 35 per cent we are not so sure,” Marcel Stive, a coastal water expert, told Dutch television.
For tiny Netherlands, the battle to keep out the sea is a matter of survival. More than half its landmass lies below sea level and the Netherlands — its name means ‘Low Lands’ — is also one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
Kroos admitted that his country’s famed dikes would not have been able to withstand Katrina, but says such a storm would only hit the temperate Netherlands once in a million years.
“New Orleans lies in a subtropical area and the wind speeds that can happen there are much higher than could happen here.”
Professor Bart Schultz, a Dutch expert on water management, also pointed out that New Orleans’ defences were much weaker.
“The safety level of the dikes in New Orleans is much lower, substantially lower than the safety level in our dikes,” he said, estimating the risk of failure of New Orleans’ dikes at one per cent per year.
While the Dutch use multiple dikes, New Orleans had just one line of defence on each side of the city. Schultz also argued that prevention was better than a cure.
“If you see now what the United States government allocates for disaster relief, that is at least 10 times the money (that would have been) needed to take the measures before,” he said.
The Netherlands’ Delta Project started in 1958 and created a defensive flood barrier capable of withstanding the kind of storm that only happens once in 10,000 years, experts say.—Reuters