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How do you keep the sea out of a country that lies below it? Ten questions about the dams, gates and barriers of the Delta Works, and the night that started it all.
Dyke walker 0–4 · Barrier builder 5–8 · Master of the tides 9–10
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On the night of 31 January 1953 a storm and a high spring tide broke through the dykes, mostly in Zeeland. Within weeks the government set up a commission that drew up the Delta Plan.
Photo: Agency for International Development, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Zeeland is a province of islands and estuaries where the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt meet the sea. Its name even means 'sea land'.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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The barrier is run by a computer that reads weather and sea level data and starts closing by itself when a storm surge of about 3 metres is expected. Its two gates are each about 210 metres long.
Photo: DeltaWorks Online - Eszter Simonfi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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The first plan was a closed dam, but fishermen and nature lovers protested. Now the tide flows in and out as usual, so oysters and mussels can still live there, and the gates only close in a storm.
Photo: Rens Jacobs / Beeldbank V&W ., Wikimedia Commons, Attribution.
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Neeltje Jans was a sandbank that was raised into a work island for the construction. Today it has a park with attractions and a nature reserve, and in 2015 a stage of the Tour de France even finished there.
Photo: Bryan Tong Minh, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5.
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The caissons were built for the floating harbours of the Normandy landings in the Second World War, but these four were never used there. In November 1953 they closed the last gap in the broken dyke, and now they hold the Watersnoodmuseum.
Photo: Hans van der Bie, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Building the little version in Madurodam took six months. The real barrier took six years.
Photo: Gellerj, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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The American Society of Civil Engineers chose the Delta Works together with the Zuiderzee Works. The list also includes the Channel Tunnel and the Panama Canal.
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The Marshall Plan, which helped Europe rebuild after the Second World War, gave about 400 million guilders. Money from the discovery of Dutch natural gas helped as well.
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In 1953 the dykes along the Hollandse IJssel came close to breaking, which put about 1.5 million people at risk. So this barrier near Rotterdam was built first, while the Haringvliet dam took until 1971.
Photo: Jan van Galen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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