A good percentage of the inhabitants of the Netherlands live below sea level and in the past catastrophes occurred regularly as the North Sea overwhelmed dykes and rushed in on human settlements. Margriet de Moor’s thrilling and frightening novel, Flood Tide, recalls the killer floods of 1953 when thousands of people were killed as the sea reclaimed the lands that had been taken from it when dykes set up to protect new settlements were overwhelmed and whole towns disappeared from the face of the earth. In February 1962 neighbouring Hamburg was the victim of a surging flood that killed hundreds and a decade ago the Dutch concluded that their big urban centres, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, were increasingly threatened by great calamity. They concluded that the rapidly growing urban population was never going to be safe from the sea unless something serious was done, a decision that unfortunately was never even remotely considered for New Orleans. No doubt too expensive.
And so exactly ten years ago the spectacular engineering project known as the Maeslant flood tide defence was declared operational. Two 220 meter long gigantic horizontal towers, each heavier than the Eifel Tower that they resemble, have been waiting since then for the moment when they could show that they could indeed be swung into place and close off the Nieuwe Waterweg, the 20 kilometer long and 360 meter wide channel leading from the North Sea to Europe’s biggest harbour in Rotterdam. Yesterday the moment came as the storm called Thilo smashed into the Dutch coast and the towers were closed for the first time under storm conditions since they were built. It was a moment that in many ways would determine whether the city of Rotterdam and its great harbour had a secure future, particularly in the face of global warming.
And so far it has held. When the morning of the flood tide came, the flood was still being held back and Dutch engineers seem convinced that even the higher floods expected in the day would not breech their engineering marvel. This project cost the Dutch a tremendous fortune, but you won’t find any Dutch people today who would say it wasn’t worth it, despite the ten years it stood idle. It’s something the residence of New Orleans were not given the chance to decide.