Flood disaster of 1953
The North Sea flood of 1953 (in the Netherlands and Flanders as Watersnood or shortly de Ramp "catastrophe" in the UK than (Great) North Sea flood or East Coast floods and also as in Germany Holland storm surge called) is considered the most severe North Sea - storm surge of 20th century. It occurred on the night of January 31st to February 1st, 1953 and affected large parts of the Dutch and English coasts and, to a lesser extent, Belgium .
Due to the simultaneous occurrence of a pronounced spring tide and a heavy storm from the northwest , the North Sea rose to 2.74 meters in Southend / Essex and to 2.97 meters at King's Lynn in Norfolk . At Hoek van Holland a level of 3.85 meters above NAP was measured, with the normal tidal range there being 80 centimeters; at Brouwershaven the water rose to 4.25 meters, in Vlissingen to 4.55 meters and in Kruiningen to 5.25 meters.
Despite large-scale rescue operations, the flood cost many lives. According to official figures, 1,835 people died in the Netherlands, most of them in the province of Zeeland ; 307 people died in Great Britain , 14 in Belgium and 252 at sea in the sinking of a ferry and several fishing boats. The storm also raged over the German and Danish North Sea coasts , where it occurred as a medium storm surge with no loss of life. A total of 2408 people were killed in the disaster.
The last damaged dike could only be closed ten months later, in November 1953 at Ouwerkerk on Schouwen-Duiveland . The disaster triggered an unprecedented flood protection program in the Netherlands , the Delta Plan . The Zeeland and South Holland coasts were fortified by the construction of hundreds of kilometers of new dikes and the wide and deep mouths of the Meuse and Scheldt were sealed off from the sea by barriers . The construction of these enormous protective structures created a completely new infrastructure and at the same time connected the previously economically weaker Zeeland with the more industrialized South Holland. In Great Britain, the disaster led to the planning of the Thames Barrier flood protection barrier , which was not to be implemented until 20 years later. In Belgium, too, the disaster prompted extensive considerations; The Sigma Plan project was only launched after the country had to survive another flood disaster in 1976.
Situation before the disaster
Information and warning
In the current media age of digital and electronic news distribution, it is a matter of course to receive and distribute news and news from all over the world in a matter of seconds. It was different in post-war Europe. The news media was limited to newspapers and radio broadcasts , the broadcasters sent throughout the day only in a few urban areas. There were also no Sunday newspapers in many countries. Television was in its infancy and only broadcast a few hours a week. Private households rarely had a television or telephone .
Weather and flood forecasts were also not nearly as developed. In 1953 there was no international cooperation in the field of weather warnings, and without computers and weather satellites the forecasts were imprecise. Weather warnings were reserved for the authorities and were mostly not distributed to the population.
weather condition
January 1953 came to an end with the following weather situation: There was an extensive low pressure area over Scandinavia , while south of Iceland a small, at first inconspicuous marginal depression emerged, which zigzagged south on the night of January 30th. Around noon it was over Scotland , where it intensified considerably and developed into a hurricane . On the night of January 31, the system passed Scotland and the Shetland Islands before reaching the North Sea, where the tide was at the time. The storm reached force 11 over Denmark and the German Bight on the evening of January 31, and force 10 on the Dutch coast. It hardly weakened in the further course; Wind force 9 was measured for 20 hours in the south-west of the Netherlands. The storm stagnated the water and could no longer drain because the storm continued to push it against the land. So there could be no ebb ; rather, the North Sea water pressed against the dykes and washed them under. In the early morning hours of February 1st, the lowlands reached East Frisia and continued over the European mainland to eastern Central Europe, where it weakened. The Scandinavian cold air prevailed in Central Europe between the low and an increasing high over north-western Europe. The highest wind speeds in the area of the low were measured on January 31 in the north of Scotland with 180 kilometers per hour. There were also widespread hurricane gusts with peaks of up to 144 km / h on the Dutch coasts.
Nevertheless, the population of the affected coastal areas was not particularly concerned, but expected that the storm would lose its strength at night. Even the weather report, which was broadcast by the Dutch radio station at 6 p.m. (“A heavy storm is raging from northwest / north over the northern and western areas of the Netherlands ...”) indicated a restless night, but not a catastrophe. The residents of Zeeland and South Holland continued to celebrate Princess Beatrix's 15th birthday and enjoy the weekend all the more unimpressed when they understood the weather report as a warning for the northern Netherlands rather than for its coastal area. Almost no one was aware that the incoming tide was a spring tide . According to the tide table, the ebb should have started around 10:30 p.m. , but the water did not retreat. The force of the storm broke the tidal movement. Many people had never seen the water so high at low tide; however, few took concrete action, and most went to sleep.
State of the dikes
Around a quarter of the Netherlands is below sea level, and many dikes in the confluence of the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt in South Holland and Zeeland ( called the delta area ) have long been weak, poorly maintained or not high enough. Dutch scientists had warned of this danger as early as the 1920s, and in 1929 the Rijkswaterstaat set up an “Inquiry Commission for Rivers, Inlets and Coasts” which, in 1934, carried out a study on the consequences of the invasion of the Dutch Biesbosch area. The study shows that most of the dykes were too low and, particularly in West Brabant, did not meet the safety requirements. Rijkswaterstaat was working on plans to close the sea spouses . First, however, the final dike (Dutch: afsluitdijk ) in the northern province of Noord-Holland was tackled and completed in 1932.
For financial reasons, it was decided to raise the dykes, which were classified as particularly endangered, only with a concrete wall, a Muralt wall named after their inventor Robert Rudolph Lodewijk de Muralt . In this way, a total of 120 kilometers of dyke had been increased by 1935, mainly on the island of Schouwen and the peninsula of Zuid-Beveland .
In April 1943 there was an exceptionally high water level, in various places the water flowed over the dikes that had just been raised. The commission re-examined the condition and the width and height of the dikes and weirs, and again numerous serious deficiencies were found, which the commission strongly warned about. According to the report, there was a high risk that the dykes would not be able to withstand a high storm surge. However, apart from further studies, there were no improvements. Instead, the focus was on the piling up of the Zuiderzee because the government saw land reclamation as particularly urgent.
The situation worsened when many dikes were bombed or deliberately damaged by the Dutch during World War II to hinder the German occupation. It was only after the Second World War , after the reconstruction had started and in February 1946 all dykes were poorly repaired and sealed again, that the critical dykes in Zeeland were raised: in 1950 Botlek and Brielse Maas , both tributaries of the Nieuwe Maas , became and in 1952 Braakman , a sea arm of the Westerschelde , was damned. Subsequently, the implementation of the three-island plan (Drie Eilandenplan) was supposed to begin, the actual start of which was, however, postponed several times.
After a severe storm surge had not occurred for many years - the flood disaster of 1825 was only known to people from hearsay, and the flood of 1916 had almost exclusively affected the northern Netherlands around the Zuiderzee - the population and the government lulled themselves into security and focused on others Investments such as solving the problem of salinization as a result of increasing penetration of seawater into the interior, after the waterways in the delta area had been constantly deepened.
The catastrophe
In the Netherlands
The Dutch weather office Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologische Instituut (KNMI) sent a telex warning to the municipalities of Rotterdam , Willemstad , Gorinchem and Bergen op Zoom on Saturday, January 31st, at 11 a.m.
“… Storm en daarmee gepaard gaand gevaarlijk hoogwater”
"Storm and the associated dangerous flood"
that is expected in the coming night.
Nonetheless, life in the delta area continued as usual on Saturdays; many a person in charge, who read the warning, put the letter aside for the time being, trusting that the dykes would hold up.
At 5:15 p.m., the KNMI decided on a general warning telegram with the following wording:
“Boven het noordelijke en westelijke deel van de Noordzee woedt een zware storm tussen noordwest en noord.”
"A severe storm from the north-northwest is raging over the northern and western areas of the North Sea"
The state authorities as well as the cities and municipalities that had subscribed to this weather report were responsible for taking further measures. But the news did not reach many municipalities and administrative authorities: They did not have a subscription to the weather reports from the Meteorological Office. In the affected area, only Walcheren had subscribed to the service, Rijkswaterstaat and the other higher-level agencies were closed for the weekend, so the warning was not read.
In the radio news from 6 p.m. the following wording was broadcast nationwide:
“Boven het noordelijke en westelijke deel van de Noordzee woedt a two storm tussen noordwest en noord. Het stormveld breidt zich verder over de noordelijke en oostelijke Noordzee uit. "
“A heavy storm is raging from the north-north-west over the northern and western parts of the North Sea. The storm area spreads further over the northern and eastern North Sea. "
This weather forecast was not associated with warnings or instructions to the population. There were no emergency protection programs, and accordingly there were no plans to inform, evacuate and rescue the population in the event of natural disasters. When the situation worsened at night, the radio was unusable because there was no radio program at night. When the church bells rang and sirens wailed as a last warning in some villages early in the morning, many residents thought of a fire, but saw no firelight and often went back to bed. Only the people living directly on the coast had to see what was happening when the wind was force 12: the storm devastated the beaches, swept away houses on the coastline, hurled fishing boats in the harbors over the quay walls and washed out sea dikes.
Shortly after midnight, at 12:44 a.m. on February 1, 1953, the tide was high and three hours later a spring tide developed . Due to the interaction of the spring tide with the high water caused by the long-lasting storm, the sea continued to rise instead of retreating to the ebb . At 03:24 the highest water level was measured in Vlissingen at 4.55 meters above NAP.
The lower and poorly maintained dikes on the south side of the polders were the first to be overflowed and washed away. Around 3 a.m. the first dykes broke in Oude Tonge near Overflakkee , Kortgene and Kruiningen , and near Stavenisse a wave struck a gap 1,800 meters wide. In Noord-Brabant, near Willemstad , Heijningen , Fijnaart (all of which have since become part of Moerdijk), the dikes did not hold up any more than they did on the Hoeksche Waard in South Holland , a foreland of around 60 polders where the dyke broke at 's-Gravendeel , Strijen and Numansdorp all polders of this value were flooded . Almost all of Schouwen-Duiveland was flooded. Also Goeree-Overflakkee was far to the east, across Dirksland addition, covered with water. Houses or entire hamlets collapsed everywhere and were carried away with the flow, such as Schuring near Numansdorp and Capelle near Ouwerkerk , where no house was left standing.
A total of 89 dikes broke that night over a distance of 187 kilometers.
Few areas were spared. The Schielands Hoge Zeedijk , which runs from Schiedam via Rotterdam to Gouda on the Maas and along the Hollandsche IJssel, stopped , even if water penetrated in many places. According to legend, a courageous fisherman drove his boat into the biggest breach. The memorial near Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel tells of this and bears the inscription “Een dubbeltje op zijn kant” (On a knife's edge). Since this dam protects more than three million residents of Randstad , there was no major catastrophe. If it had broken, all of Rotterdam , Delft and large parts of The Hague would have been flooded.
At around 4:30 a.m., the first disaster reports were received by telex from the newsrooms in Zwijndrecht and Willemstad. However, their offices were unoccupied, because no newspapers were published in the Netherlands on Sundays at the time. Only the ANP radio news service was working from early Sunday morning. Shortly after 5 a.m., the first employees read the incoming reports. Telephone traffic to the disaster areas had collapsed.
At dawn, the daylight gave a first impression of the extent of the disaster. In large parts of the affected areas, only a few tree tops and house roofs could be seen. Zeeland could only be reached from the air; military reconnaissance flights on behalf of the government did not take place until Monday. Before that, there were no major rescue operations. The local people were left to their own devices. When the storm allowed it, fishermen and boat owners drove out of houses and yards to pick up people or cattle. The full scope of the disaster and the fact that Schouwen-Duiveland , Goeree-Overflakkee and Tholen were completely flooded remained unknown to authorities until late Monday afternoon.
On Sunday morning, the water sank considerably due to the ebb tide. Those who could took the opportunity to get themselves and others to safety in higher places. At noon the water began to rise again. The second tide was even higher than that of the previous night. The water brought down other houses that had initially been spared, and even house roofs were often no longer a safe place for the survivors. Around 5 p.m. it got dark again.
On Monday the Dutch government declared a national emergency; the rescue operations began. For a day and two nights, the people in the flooded areas had been left to fend for themselves. On the one hand, the authorities were informed late over the weekend and because of the lack of disaster plans and took action even later; on the other hand, the infrastructure collapsed, radio traffic came to a standstill and all telephone lines failed, which meant that there was no adequate overview of the extent of the disaster. It was impossible to advance on land, most of the roads and railway lines were flooded. Rescue could only be done from the air or by ship and boat. Thanks to the help of amateur radio operators , the Dutch government was gradually getting a sense of the magnitude of the storm surge, and Dutch , Belgian , French , American and British soldiers arrived in the disaster area by boats, planes and helicopters from Monday. These included two companies from the US Rhine River Patrol with former German soldiers.
Queen Juliana , Prince Bernhard and Princess Wilhelmina visited various locations of the accident, the royal yacht Piet Hein became a hospital ship , and evacuees found accommodation in the castles of Soestdijk and het Loo . An unprecedented fundraising campaign started during the rescue operation. Prince Bernhard took over the presidency of the Rampenfonds (which he was to hold until 1990), while Crown Princess Beatrix gave away her bicycle , which she had just received for her birthday, to the Red Cross - a symbolic act of closeness to the people of the royal family, which particularly touched the Dutch.
The NCRV radio show Beurzen open, dijken Dicht (“Wallets open, dykes tight”) by Johan Bodegraven , which went on air a week after the disaster and was broadcast weekly, became known nationwide . As part of this program, in which artists appeared free of charge, private individuals and companies were allowed to introduce themselves and tell over the microphone how much they had donated. The government had given explicit approval that the company names could be mentioned. The last broadcast took place on March 28, 1953; The proceeds amounted to six million guilders in favor of the aid fund Stichting Nationaal Rampenfonds .
Donations were also collected through sporting events. There were two charity matches in football : the Dutch national team , which at that time consisted only of amateurs, had organized a match just like the compatriots around Bram Appel and Theo Timmermans who played as professionals abroad, mainly in France . The Dutch football association Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbal Bond (KNVB) refused to work with the professionals. Ultimately, the conflict, which caused an international sensation, could only be ended with the direct intervention of Prince Bernhard. On March 7, 1953, the Dutch national team played a game against Denmark, which the Dutch lost 2-1, and on March 12, in the sold-out Prinzenpark in Paris, there was a game between a selection of Dutch international professionals and a French team consisted of players from Stade Reims and Racing Paris , which would go down in football history as Watersnoodwedstrijd . 8,000 fans had come from the Netherlands and saw their team win 2-1. After that, professional football was introduced step by step in the Netherlands .
The willingness to help also from other countries was great. Scandinavia, for example, supplied building materials and prefabricated wood components for house construction, and in a large quantity that you can see Nordic style houses all over Zeeland. For the German Red Cross (DRK) it was one of the first disasters after the Second World War in which it could provide help independently. The German Caritas Association also provided foreign aid for the first time in this flood disaster. First of all, immediate aid was sent in the form of woolen blankets and rubber boots. The willingness of the German population to help the neighboring country with donations was great; around 600,000 German marks were donated to the DRK for the victims of the flood disaster. In the following months, the DRK took part in a textile procurement program. Some of the donations were used to rebuild destroyed industrial and commercial enterprises. Years later, these relief operations were also understood by the Dutch population as an honest attempt to improve German-Dutch relations, which were still very difficult due to the war.
The disaster claimed 1835 lives in the Netherlands, of which 873 were killed in Zeeland, 686 dead in South Holland and 254 dead in North Brabant. The most affected places were Oude Tonge (Overflakkee) with 250 dead, Stavenisse (Tholen) with 200 dead and Nieuwerkerk (Duiveland) with 150 dead. 3,000 houses and 300 farms were completely destroyed, 40,000 houses and 3,000 farms damaged. 20,000 cows, 12,000 pigs, 1,750 horses, 2,750 sheep and 165,000 poultry drowned. 130,000 (322,500 acres, according to the British Meteorological Service) to 200,000 hectares (according to the Dutch government) of arable land have been flooded and made sterile for a long time by the salt water. Large parts of the dykes were washed away and 500 kilometers of dykes were badly damaged. The dikes had 90 large gaps and 500 smaller breaches. In the southern provinces of the Netherlands, Zeeland , Zuid-Holland and Noord-Brabant , the flooding of islands and polders forced the evacuation and subsequent resettlement of 72,000 people.
In Great Britain
The weather forecast for the British south-east coast had read
“Cloudy with a little light rain or drizzle. Mild."
“Cloudy with little light rain or drizzle. Mild."
Great Britain also had neither a flood warning system nor a central point for coordinating flood warnings at that time; various authorities were responsible for flood protection. These and the individual communities had drawn up detailed emergency plans for severe weather and flood disasters, but many telephone connections were interrupted by the storm, which is why a broad advance warning or evacuation could not be organized in the remaining time. In particular, the southern sections of the coast were warned too late, sometimes not at all.
The news that on Saturday morning the Princess Victoria ferry was in distress on its crossing between Stranraer in Scotland and Larne in Northern Ireland off Belfast in the storm, which was meanwhile rapidly moving south, and sank a little later, was only spread many hours later, and practically simultaneously At around 6 p.m., water broke in several places in the extensive, flat coastline of the counties of Norfolk and Lincolnshire with its soft, eroded chalk cliffs. The coastal protection facilities that had been neglected in the years before could not withstand the storm waves, which were up to two meters higher than normal. After dike breaches at King's Lynn , Heacham and Snettisham around 6:20 p.m., the villages just above sea level were flooded within minutes. Over 80 people died that night on this stretch of coast alone, thousands survived the night on roofs, towers or trees.
At 7:27 p.m., a train coming from Hunstanton on the way to King's Lynn collided with one of the floating houses and derailed. At 8 p.m. wind force 12 (full hurricane ) was measured at Felixstowe . As of 8:30 p.m., the tide reached The Wash , and the sea broke through the Sea Palling dike , where seven people drowned. At 9 p.m. water flowed freely through the streets of Great Yarmouth , where ten people died and around 3,500 homes were destroyed or badly damaged.
Even so, the Lincolnshire Police Department reported at 10 p.m.:
"So far no casualties and situation in hand ..."
"So far no victims, the situation is under control."
At midnight, a two-meter-high wave flooded Old Town Harwich , Essex , and half an hour later, Canvey Island was flooded. 58 people were killed here and 11,500 people were left homeless. Almost all of the holiday homes in a bungalow park were torn away.
When a levee broke at 1 a.m. in Felixstowe , Suffolk , 40 people drowned. In Jaywick near Clacton-on-Sea, residents waited 31 hours on roofs and trees before they could be rescued.
At two o'clock in the morning water broke into the industrial area at the Thames estuary . 3,000 residents of West Ham east of London were surprised in their sleep.
Many people had to spend the night outdoors until help came the next day. At least twelve of the total of 307 fatalities died of hypothermia. In contrast to the Netherlands, the relief operations on Sunday morning got under way quickly and efficiently, which was also made easier by the fact that no areas were largely cut off from the outside world.
In view of the scale of the disaster in the Netherlands and Flanders, the British disaster area received significantly less attention from the world. But also in Great Britain the flood is counted among the most destructive natural disasters on the island. More than 1,600 kilometers of coastline were devastated and 1,000 kilometers of dykes and quay walls damaged. In the flooded area of 180,000 acres (728 square kilometers) 30,000 people had to be brought to safety and 24,000 houses were badly damaged. Of the 307 fatalities, 38 were from Felixstowe / Suffolk when prefabricated wooden houses were flooded in the West End. 58 people were killed in Essex , Canvey Island , and another 37 died in the Jaywick flood.
In Belgium
The storm also reached Belgium. The Koninklijk Meteorologische Instituut (KMI) in Ukkel issued a warning on January 31st at 10 a.m.
"Storm van 9 Beaufort (Bft) uit NW op de Noordzee"
"Storm of 9 Bft from northwest on the North Sea"
and sent out a second warning about one at 9:10 p.m.
"Zeer zware storm (11 Bft) op zee."
"Very severe storm of 11 Bft at sea"
On the Flemish coast, mainly the coastal towns of East and West Flanders suffered great damage, with homeless people, injured and fatalities. The hardest hit was Ostend , the city center of which was completely flooded to a height of two meters after the sea dike protecting the city was broken. The Beveren sea dike also broke . Hundreds of houses were damaged in Sint-Gillis-Waas , Moerbeke , Hamme and the villages of Doel and Kallo , which belong to Beveren . Only De Panne and Koksijde were largely spared on this stretch of coast .
14 people drowned in Belgium, eight of them on the coast and three in the polders of the province of Antwerp . The storm moved far inland; In the Ardennes , a snowstorm developed that buried some villages under a meter-high layer of snow and cut them off from the outside world.
The KMI meteorologists of the time were also surprised by the extent of the disaster, but the aid in the more manageable Flemish disaster areas could be organized much faster and more efficiently than in the neighboring country.
At sea
On January 31, 1953 around 1:58 p.m., the ferry Princess Victoria went down in a storm on the route between Stranraer in Scotland and Larne in Northern Ireland . 34 passengers and ten crew members of the total of 179 people on board were saved. All women and children died when their lifeboat crashed into the hull and crashed.
A little later, the Finnish cargo ship Bore VI ran aground off Westerschouwen , then still an island. It later sent the first disaster reports of the area cut off from the outside world by the flooding.
Eight other ships with a total of 94 crew members went down, including the trawlers Michael Griffiths and IJM 60 and the coastal ships Salland and Westland . The Scheldt , a steam tug from 1926 that the SS Aalsdijk from the Holland-Amerika Lijn wanted to help, ran aground itself. The crew had to be picked up by a lifeboat from Hoek van Holland . The Swedish steamship Virgo ran aground at Vliehors before the tugboat Holland of the van Doeksen shipping company could reach the ship. It is estimated that around a third of all Scottish fishing boats were lost on storm night. 28 fishermen also drowned on the Flemish coast.
The Princess Victoria was one of the first RoRo ferries , and her sinking was the decisive factor in constructing ferries differently in the future. Among other things, the inwardly opening tailgate was identified as the cause that the ferry was flooded with water so quickly and sank. The tailgates of modern ships open outwards so that the force of the water cannot push them in so easily.
A total of 224 people and 28 people were killed off the Flemish coast at sea off Scotland and England.
Reconstruction and improved coastal protection
In Calvinist Zeeland, many people accepted the storm surge as a test that God had imposed on the people, but the authorities of all affected countries acted quickly and purposefully in order to deal with the events surrounding the disaster and to learn from their experiences.
Very soon it became clear that in the Netherlands the water and soil associations (Hoogheemraadschap) , the other authorities and the municipal administrations were just as unprepared for the events and effects of this storm surge as the Dutch government itself. Although experts for decades before the inadequate state of construction of the had warned most of the dikes and the possible consequences, those responsible had failed to make radical improvements. The disaster also made it clear that the collection and dissemination of information as well as the warning of the population proceeded haphazardly and too slowly, and in some cases the responsible authorities and authorities could even be blamed for gross negligence in this regard .
The situation in England was similar. On the one hand, dykes were too low or unstable and the coastal areas insufficiently secured to withstand such a storm surge, on the other hand, with a nationwide efficient flood warning system that would have enabled early evacuation, at least significantly fewer deaths would be to complain about. At that time, flood and weather forecasting was not so well developed, and there was still no central body in the UK for issuing storm and flood warnings. In contrast to the Dutch there were contingency plans for the British communities, but they were not warned of the impending danger. Here, too, the authorities were closed and unavailable because of the weekend, and there was no emergency service. Some communities, especially the southern ones, were caught by the flood without warning.
Sea dikes are designed so that their height corresponds to the maximum water height of a storm surge, which statistically only occurs once in 10,000 years at its maximum height. These maximum water levels are derived from the historical data. As a reaction to the flood disaster, the annual rate for the design water levels in the area of the coastal sections requiring special protection was set by law at 10,000 years and should therefore offer protection against storm surges in the future, the violence and heights of which only occur stochastically every 10,000 years.
The Dutch Delta Plan
Although the reconstruction began immediately, it took nine months in the Netherlands for all dike breakthroughs to be closed. On November 6, 1953, the last trough at Ouwerkerk was sealed with concrete caissons from the British Army.
On February 18, 1953, the Dutch minister for water engineering, Jacob Algera, convened the Delta Commission, which was responsible for the preliminary planning work to reinforce the dykes on the coast of Zeeuws Vlaanderen and Zuid-Holland and for drawing up the Delta plan . The commission consisted of 13 engineers from different disciplines and the Hague mathematician and economist Jan Tinbergen . The chairmanship was taken over by the director of Rijkswaterstaat, AG Maris, while the secretary was Johan van Veen , from whom the first studies from the delta area came and who is considered to be the father of the delta plan. The Delta Commission should work out the Delta Act and a dike plan, based on which most of the inlets of the southern Netherlands should be closed by dams and the sea fortifications brought to delta height and strengthened.
In addition to the practical proposals that were expected from the Commission, it ensured that the height of the dykes was no longer measured according to the most well-known water level, but that statistical methods for measuring storm surge water levels were introduced and in future an extrapolated storm surge water level formed the basis for dike measurements . Developments in the reliability theory in the following years also made it possible to assess the flood risks taking into account the length effect and failure and rupture mechanisms at dike sections. The Delta Commission thus optimized the calculation of the safety water levels that must be maintained by the dykes.
In May 1953, the Delta Commission presented its first proposal: the repair and elevation of the Schouwenser dike on Schouwen-Duiveland and the construction of a movable storm surge barrier on the Hollandse IJssel as the highest priority. The Holländische IJssel barrage was the first to be built. Within a week, 30,000 volunteers volunteered to help rebuild the dykes. The Ministry of Water directed the work, which should be financed by the state. The following proposals from the Commission included the closure of the Oosterschelde , Grevelingen Seearm and Haringvliet . The fourth proposal, the Drie-Eilanden Plan (three-island plan), originated in its main features from the 1930s and included a connection between Walcheren , Noord - and Zuid-Beveland .
On March 16, 1954, the Delta Commission submitted an extensive report that became the basis of the Dutch Delta Act of May 8, 1958. The result was the Delta Plan , a gigantic coastal protection project that, at six billion guilders, was ultimately more than three times as expensive as budgeted.
Since the 1980s, the development and application of the reliability theory made it possible to estimate flood risks taking into account multiple failure and rupture mechanisms of the protective devices. Dutch hydraulic engineers from Delta-Werke were among the first engineers to apply this theory to the practical dimensioning of protective devices. Reliability models were used for the first time in 1976 for the design and implementation of the storm surge barrier in the Eastern Scheldt ( Oosterschelde ) and also for the design of the Maeslantkering in the Nieuwe Waterweg near Rotterdam, which was completed in 1997 . With this barrage, the Delta project was completed.
In 1993 and 1995 there were again floods in the Netherlands, which caused great material damage but did not result in deaths. This time, however, the water did not come from the sea, but the Rhine and Maas flooded their banks - caused by snowmelt and extreme rainfall. More than 250,000 people had to be evacuated. These catastrophes triggered the development of a "Delta Plan for the Great Rivers" ( Delta Plan Grote Rivieren ) .
As part of the overall Delta Plan project, ten new dykes and flood weirs were built alongside 1,000 kilometers of dike heights. The Oosterschelde barrage was the most extensive and expensive construction project. Instead of a closing dike, it was decided to use a storm surge barrier that did not cut off the Oosterschelde from salt water and tides and thus helped to preserve the flora and fauna there.
The British Thames Barrier
Great Britain also learned from the disaster and the theoretical considerations were followed by initial practical innovations. The disaster ushered in the UK's largest and most expensive flood protection program to date. The end of 1953 became the Committee on Coastal Flooding within the Waverley Committee , chaired by Lord Viscount Waverley founded, its recommendations for the creation of the Thames Barrier led that London and the upper Thames running to protect against flooding. The committee also recommended the establishment of a national flood warning system, which resulted in the Met Office- operated Storm Tide Forecasting Service (STFS) .
The Environment Agency is now the central body for issuing flood warnings and coordinating flood defense in England and Wales, based on regular storm and tide reports from the British Meteorological Institute, the Met Office . The agency operates a modern warning system that warns affected households at least two hours of the impending danger. In April 2000, the agency opened the National Flood Warning Center in Surrey . The disaster also led to the planning of the Thames Barrier , one of the world's largest movable flood protection weirs. But it wasn't until 1974 that construction of this barrage began, which was completed ten years later. The construction costs amounted to 534 million pounds . However, since this barrage does not protect the eastern suburbs of London and the Medway Towns and there are concerns that the rising water level in the North Sea could threaten the area again, there are plans to replace the Thames Barrier with a new barrage from 2030 onwards Length of about 16 km between Sheerness and Southend is to be built directly into the Thames estuary.
The Belgian Sigma Plan
In Belgium, too, it had been known for a long time that many dykes were tired or not high enough. Nevertheless, they were not fully aware of the dangerousness of the dike condition and the scope of a storm surge or tried to suppress this knowledge because of the immense financial expenditure required.
This time, too, it was initially limited to a quick repair of the damaged protective devices; only the greatest damage along the rupel required a longer repair time. In addition, significant dike heights were planned and implemented at endangered locations: the Scheldt and Rupel dikes near Bornem and Hingene were raised to an average of 7.75 meters.
However, these increases did not change the structural predominantly poor condition of many dikes. For a thoroughgoing improvement it was necessary to define new design water levels and wave run-up heights in order to develop new dyke cross-sections (profiles) and to strengthen and stiffen the dykes. However, there was initially a lack of money. Only after the Zeeschelde basin was hit by another flood disaster on January 3, 1976 and a large dike breakthrough in Puurs- Ruisbroek in the province of Antwerp , was the Sigma plan planned in the following year , which was redrafted several times and represents even more of a vision than a concrete construction measure.
Storm surge protection in Germany
The first German storm surge barrier, the Leda barrier, was already under construction at the time of the disaster that occurred further west and was completed in the following year.
On the German North Sea coast there were no deaths and comparatively little damage, but programs were also started here to strengthen the dikes. Among other things in Bremerhaven that in the Kennedy bridge built barrage on the Geeste estuary built which, completed in 1962, the city on the Weser estuary in the 1962 storm surge saved from disaster.
In addition to further work on the direct coastline, measures were taken to secure the Halligen ; Among other things, the islands received water and electricity supplies from the mainland for the first time. This program was still in full swing nine years later when the German North Sea coast and the lower reaches of the Elbe and Weser rivers were badly hit. The consequent shortening of the dyke line through further barriers began only afterwards.
Emergency radio
Due to the major damage situation with a high level of impairment of the infrastructure, communication between the forces or from the affected areas could largely only be guaranteed by private amateur radio during the disaster . The Netherlands and Great Britain responded by heavily involving radio amateurs in civil protection via the emergency radio organizations RAYNET (Great Britain) and DARES (Netherlands).
European cooperation
Another insight from the disaster was the need for mutual information and cooperation between neighboring countries.
The design water levels are rising worldwide and thus the threat to coastal areas from further storm surges. The dyke heights require innovative constructive solutions in order to reduce possible wave overflow, since the dykes can no longer be continuously increased. The search for cost-effective solutions that take into account the limited space available plays a major role.
In 2004, the countries bordering the North Sea, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark launched the international ComCoast project, which aims to examine such solutions theoretically and with the help of hydraulic model tests and to jointly develop solutions to improve coastal protection.
In 2009 the EU exercise FloodEx took place in the Netherlands, which simulated the exercise situation of the 1953 disaster. The THW participated from Germany .
Commemoration
In many places on the Dutch, English and Belgian coasts, there are monuments, memorial stones and water level markings to commemorate the flood disaster of 1953.
In the Netherlands, so-called phoenix caissons were used by the British military to temporarily close the largest and most dangerous dike breakthroughs . In this way, the last open place on the dike at Ouwerkerk was closed in November 1953 . The Watersnoodmuseum is housed in one of these caissons .
In the Netherlands, February 1st is national day of remembrance, which commemorates the catastrophe that has now found its way into the Canon van Nederland , a 50-stranded summary of the history of the Netherlands for school lessons. In 2003, on the fiftieth anniversary of the catastrophe, numerous events commemorated the catastrophe, dozens of books were published, multi-part TV documentaries were broadcast and a specially composed 1953 Requiem by the Dutch composer Douwe Eisenga honored the victims in many churches.
The events were dramatized in the 2009 Dutch feature film De Storm . The Dutch writer Margriet de Moor processed the events in her novel "Sturmflut".
See also
literature
- Hans Beukema: De orkaan van 1953: redders trotseerden natuurgeweld . (German: The hurricane of 1953: Rescuers defied the forces of nature), Maritext 2004, ISBN 90-804684-5-2
- Hans-Günter Gierloff-Emden : The morphological effects of the storm surge of February 1, 1953 in the western Netherlands . Institute for Geography and Economic Geography at the University of Hamburg (1954)
- Dirk Meier: Land under! The history of the flood disasters . Thorbecke. Ostfildern 2005. ISBN 3-7995-0158-4 .
- Martin Rodewald: The great North Sea storm of January 31 and February 1, 1953 . In: Die Naturwissenschaften, Issue 1, Volume 41, 1954
- Kees Slager: Over de watersnood 1 february 1953, a reconstructie van gebeurtenissen en beslissingen door various instanties . (German: About the storm surge disaster of February 1, 1953: A reconstruction of the events and resolutions of various institutions), De Koperen Tuin, Goes 1992, ISBN 90-450-0815-7
- Niets dan water. Menselijke aspects van de ramp 1953 . (German: Nothing but water. The human aspects of the storm surge disaster of 1953), information brochure from the Zeeuws Documentatiecentrum on the occasion of an exhibition from July 28th to 30th, 1983
- I. Kelman: 1953 Storm Surge Deaths . UK Version 4, November 10, 2003 (available at http://www.ilankelman.org/disasterdeaths/1953DeathsUK.doc )
Web links
- Deltawerke online: De watersnoodramp van 1953 (Dutch, German)
- NetherlandsNet: flood disaster 1953
- NetherlandsNet: A line under the past? The problems of the relationship between Germany and the Netherlands on the occasion of German offers of help after the disaster
- Municipality of Moerdijk: Stichting Herdenking Watersnoodramp 1953 (Dutch)
- Archief Zeeuw, lists of victims (Dutch)
- Virtual Memorial Monument (Dutch)
- Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorological Instituut (KNMI) Nader Verklaard: Watersnoodramp (Dutch)
- Historical photo archive ANP: Storm surge
- Contemporary film with first images from the Dutch disaster area (February 1953, 19:50 minutes, Dutch)
- Ramp 1953 (compilation of pictures of the flood disaster and the relief measures, around the end of 1953, 32:04 minutes, Dutch)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f metoffice.gov.uk ( Memento from July 5, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Rijkswaterstaat (Ministry of Water) ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS) ( Memento of the original from December 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Koninklijke Bibliotheek - Nationale bibliotheek van Nederland ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Beukema: De orkaan van 1953. p. 102
- ↑ a b c History of the Watersnoodramp 1953 . ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Meteo Zeeland
- ↑ a b c Environment Agency: East coast floods 1953 ( Memento of February 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b c d dossier stormvloed . ( Memento of January 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) KNMI
- ↑ Slager: Over de watersnood February 1, 1953 . P. 344
- ↑ a b c d e f g Deltawerke online: De watersnoodramp van 1953
- ↑ Beukema: De orkaan van 1953. p. 89
- ↑ Beukema: De orkaan van 1953. p. 19
- ↑ German Soldiers' Yearbook . Born 1983, Volume 31, Munich 1982, p. 386. Literary reception in Margriet de Moor : Sturmflut. Munich 2005, p. 87 f.
- ↑ Slager: Over de watersnood 1 February 1953. P. 343
- ↑ The sum corresponds to a purchasing power of more than 19 million euros (2008); calculated with the purchasing power converter Waarde van de gulden / euro of the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis
- ↑ Slager: Over de watersnood February 1, 1953 . P. 249
- ↑ A photo of the Dutch before kick-off can be found under page no longer available , search in web archives:
- ↑ Jurryt van de Vooren: De Watersnoodwedstrijd van Cor van der Hart ( Memento of November 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), sportgeschiedenis.nl, December 13, 2006
- ↑ DRK General Secretariat ( Memento of the original from July 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Slager: Over de watersnood 1 February 1953. p. 344
- ↑ among other things here ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ 2003 BBC review: Ferry disaster victims remembered
- ^ A b Norfolk remembers the floods of 1953. BBC
- ↑ a b Kelman: 1953 Storm Surge Deaths ( MS Word ; 361 kB)
- ↑ De stormvloed from February 1, 1953: a historical terugblik met modern technieken. (PDF) Koninklijk Meteorological Institute (KMI)
- ↑ Gazet van Antwerpen: Watersnoodramp 1953 ( Memento of the original from March 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ The tragedy of the Princess Victoria . ( Memento of the original from November 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The Commissioners of Irish Light
- ↑ fleetwood-trawlers.co.uk ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Nieuwsbrief . ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 298 kB) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. World Ship Society Rotterdam, p. 11 f.
- ↑ a b thamesweb.com ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2005 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ State Working Group on Water: Eurowater. Springer 1997, ISBN 3-540-61812-0 . P. 388 f.
- ↑ Annuality is a term used in hydrology and describes the average interval between events of a certain strength. An annuality of 10,000 years means that the event will be reached or exceeded every 10,000 years on average. See also: Natural Disasters Networking Platform
- ↑ Han Vrijling, Pieter van Gelder: Probabilistic methods for the design of dikes and coastal protection in the Netherlands. (PDF) ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. TU Delft, 2003
- ↑ ComCoast: The Future of Flood Risk Management .
- ↑ floodex.eu ( Memento of the original dated August 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Watersnoodmuseum Ouwerkerk (Dutch)
- ↑ De watersnood February 1, 1953 . ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Canon van Nederland
- ↑ Douwe Eisenga, Requiem 1953 ( Memento of the original from March 15, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ One night and a whole life. In: femundo.de. Retrieved June 2, 2018 .
