Once every 10 000 years
November 5, 2007When I look out the window today, I see a sunny autumn day. Leaves and branches gently waving, colder than you expect, with the early signs of rain coming later today. In other words, a typical Dutch autumn day.
English weather guy Piers Corbijn has made a prediction that The Netherlands will be hit by what we call a superstorm during the second halve of November this year; wind speeds of up to 175-200kph, and even tornadoes are not out of the question.
In other words, a storm rivalling those of 1987 and, of course, 1953, the biggest natural disaster in The Netherlands in recent history. A storm as described by Corbijn would be the 10 000 year storm; the Dutch norm for dikes and other flood protection systems is that they may only be tested to their full capacity once every 10 000 years. This norm was mandated after the great flood of 1953, which killed 2000 Dutchmen and women, caused 70 000 to flee, and flooded 1365 km² of land (3.3% of the country).
The forecast is, rightly so, met with scepticism, and I think it’s fairly safe to say that predictions made that far ahead will most likely turn out to be, well, nonsense. We can barely predict what the weather is like tomorrow, let alone three weeks from now. That is not to say such a storm will not occur; as I have said before, we Dutch have become complacent with the completion of the Delta Works, and I’m fairly sure Mother Nature will punish us for that complacency one of these years, but it’s impossible to say how or when.
Assuming that this guy is in fact right (you know, justifying this blog post and all), my family, friends, and I could be in a whole world of shit water. I live a few metres below sea level, about 15km out of the North Sea coast. Event though at my latitude I’m protected by the coastal dunes, you only have to move north a few km to stumble upon a weak link in our North Sea defences: the Hondsbosse Zeewering, marked by our government as one of the eight weak links in the coastal defense system; the dike is too low, and the trench in the sea in front of it is too deep, causing higher waves.
De Hondsbosse Zeewering itself is still an impressive piece of engineering. It it simply fcuking huge, but it is also showing its age. As you can see on the below picture, erosion of the coastal areas on either end of the dike has caused the dike itself to stick out into the sea. The current dike was originally built in 1880, ending a centuries long struggle to maintain the coastal dunes in this area after the St. Elizabeth’s Flood of 1421.
If a superstorm would occur in the coming years, we could be in serious trouble. Especially seeing I can’t swim.
You should learn. It’s fun. :)
Comment by Carl — November 5, 2007 @ 5:17 pm
This is the kind of water controls we need in America. And the mentality-to stand for 10,000 years-that’s BEAUTIFUL. Of course, the radical environmentalists want humanity to just go away so the world can revert to swamps and woods. Then what? A comet come along and wipes out the planet. No, humanity is not a curse on the planet-yes there are concerns, the answer is to SOLVE THEM, not denigrate humanity. That way, next time a giant planet wrecking comet come collifding toward the Earth, ALL the life form are protected when we fly up and do something about it. Otherwise, if we turned the whole planet into a nature preserve and disappeared aka “The happening” or “12 Monkeys”, the comet would have it’s way. Maybe Humanity is the Earth’s answer to comets?
Comment by Dante D'Anthony — June 21, 2008 @ 9:24 pm