The Netherland's Watersnood Museum

About 20 minutes from Bruges, we left Belgium and entered the Netherlands at Zeeland (translation," sea land"). Most of the land--a collection of islands--lies below sea level and was reclaimed over time from the sea, rivers, and lakes by the Dutch. In the process, the shape of the landscape has changed at the hands of both man and nature.

That's where the famous windmills enter into the picture. After diking off large tracts of land below sea level, the Dutch used those to harness wind energy, lifting the water up out of the enclosed area, diverting it into canals, and draining the land--called polders. They then cultivated hardy plants--like barley, followed by wheat--to remove salt from the soil, slowing turning marshy estuaries into fertile farmland. The windmills later served a second purpose for farmers by turning stone wheels to grind their grain.

 
Dutch reclamation projects are essentially finished. But in this era of global warning and rising sea levels, the Dutch are developing plans to upgrade their dikes and bulk up their beaches to hold back the sea. They also continue to innovate, building floatable homes and greenhouses (which rise with the tides) and relocating dikes farther from the rivers (to create wider floodplains). All this technological tinkering with nature over the centuries translated into a popular local saying: "God made the Earth, but the Dutch made Holland."
 

We finally--we drove for a couple hours, including a wrong turn because of construction--arrived at the town of Zierikzee and found the Watersnood (Flood) Museum in Ouwerkerk. This museum displays exhibits from the natural disaster which took place on the night of January 31, 1953 when the dykes gave way for a night of incredible flooding and mass destruction. Hilbren's uncle lived here at the time and swam all night to survive. Afterwards, he moved to Canada and never wanted to return because his memories were so traumatic.



Besides being dedicated to the North Sea Flood of 1953, the museum--which is located inside four massive breakwaters or caissons which were used to plug the last gap in the dike here--also shows how the Netherlands works with and against water, The caissons were from England and originally intended for one of the Allied landings at Ostend in Belgium, which was never realized.

For that reason, it was very cold in here--a very large exhibition "hall" full of exhibits, maps, books, records of the deceased, interactive displays, etc. We could've spent many hours educating ourselves but we only had about 45 minutes, much of which was taken up by watching a movie prior to wandering through the caissons.

Tens of thousands had to flee their homes that night; and 1,800 people lost their lives. The dreadful night obviously caused sheer devastation. But since that time, the Dutch government and people have worked to ensure this type of disaster never happens again. It was extremely sobering to see some of the remnants from the destruction to peoples' lives.

Next, we were headed to the rebuilt town of Zierikzee because the original one was damaged by the 1953 catastrophe.