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The flooding in 1953

On the 31st of January 1953, a combination of spring floods and heavy storms caused a major disaster. A storm over the North Sea had pushed a lot of water down in the direction of the English Channel the night before. This lead to a very high tide along the south-western coast. At first, most people was not worried. High tide was not unusual and would most often go away. But it did not. Instead the Storm Warning Service of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute KNMI, issued a warning telegram about “a dangerous high tide”. This warning however, did not reach many authorities, they had not subscribed to the service. After midnight the radio stoped sending, at that time the Dutch radio did not transmit between midnight and 8 am.
In the night between Saturday the 31st and Sunday the 1st, everyone was waiting for the low tide. According to the tide-tables this should have come 10.30 pm, but it did not. Instead the storm continued to rage and interrupted the tidal movements. At this time people that had been warned or saw the danger, started to work on saving the land. Others just went to sleep.

About 2 am, the first water started to flow over the dikes and an hour later several dikes were no longer strong enough for the massive waterattack and they began to burst. The first dikes to go were the lower and less maintained on the south side of the polders at Kruiningen, Kortgene and Oude Tonge. In a short time more dikes burst and much of the south-western parts of the country were flooded. Houses collapsed and were swept away, small villages were put under water and even obliterated. The citizens fought hard to save their cities and some got help in unexpected ways. Colijnsplaat were spared because of a barge that broke loose and ended up as a breakwater in front of a crack.

The first reports of the disaster reached the newsrooms about 4.20 am. But since there was no Sunday newspaper there were no one there to read them. Only the radio news service ANP had people working and at dawn the dimensions of the catastrophe started to come clear. This was also the case for the people in the flooded areas. When the daylight came all that was left of their former home grounds were some houses and roofs, trees and fragments of dikes.

After a while the water level went down and the low tide finally came. Many people used this respite to flee from their houses and go to villages higher up the hills instead. Resque boats could also be seen picking up people from the water and moving them to safer grounds. At this time there were no larger attempts of rescue organized from other regions.

The water started to rise again on the Sunday and this time the levels were even higher than in the night before. The only thing people could do was to climb even higher, on attics, roofs, dikes and hills. Houses that had bearly made it through the night, now collapsed and people were sweapt away. Less fortunate people drowned, others managed to hold on to something or got stuck and washed up against the dikes. After 5 pm, it was dark again and a second night of waiting started for the cold and wet people. Many people did not have drinking water and hardly no food either.
During this time there could be very little help from the outside. The storm made it almost impossible to organize any help from the air and many people not living in these areas, still did not know what was going on. There were also a shortage of boats and vessels with a less depth, it was very easy for larger boats to be damaged if they crashed against things that were hidden under the surface.

When the Monday came the first villages at the edges of the flooded areas were evacuated. Many people on the islands owed their lives especially to the fishermen using their boats in the rescue. In the afternoon there were reconnaissance planes flewing over the areas and the first relief packages were dropped over Sommelsdijk. The Dutch Red Cross started a collection of money, clothes, blankets, food, furniture and toys and it was so successful that it could be stoped just a few days later when enough things had been given. Help with blankets, money, helicopters and soldiers for the evacuation of victims also came from foreign countries.

The Tuesday, February 3rd, were the turning-point. More people could be evacuated from their shelters and there were hundreds of ships with aid workers sailing to the disaster areas. In some places the military now were in charge of the rescue. By Tuesday evening, almost all people had been saved and brought to safer places. In total, 1,853 people lost their lives because of the flooding. From February 1st to 2nd, 1795 people drowned. An additional 40 died later because of the strains during the flooding. Most of these lived in Zeeland, Zuid-Holland and Noord-Brabant. During these days almost 200,000 hectare of land were put under water and 300,000 people had lost everything they owned. In some villages as much as 10% of the population drowned. More than 47,000 cattles and 140,000 poultry drowned, 48 Kilometers of dikes had bursted, 139 kilometers of dikes were damaged from which 51 kilometers beyond repairs.