September 01, 2005

DON'T DESPAIR NEW ORLEANS

IF THE DUTCH COULD DO IT IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, THE AMERICANS CAN DO IT IN THE TWENTY-FIRST

There’s no need for the people of New Orleans to despair. They can have their beautiful city back dry and bigger and better than before if they do what the Dutch did about seventy-five years ago in response to a similar disaster.

The Dutch and their ancestors have been working to hold back and reclaim land from the North Sea for over 2000 years. Then, in 1916 the horrendous storms and floods from the North Sea provided the impetus for the Dutch to start a major project to reclaim the Zuiderzee. From 1927 to 1932, a 19 mile long dyke called the Barrier Dyke was built, creating a huge freshwater lake, called the IJsselmeer, many times the size of Lake Pontchartrain.

Further protective dykes were built, little by little reclaiming the land of the IJsselmeer. The new land led to the creation of a the new province of Flevoland from what had been sea and water for centuries. The collective North Sea Protective Works is one of the seven wonders of the modern world according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The Netherlands, which is approximately the size of Connecticut and Massachusetts combined, has an approximate average elevation of 36 feet because much of the Netherlands is essentially a delta for the Rhine and other rivers just as New Orleans is a delta for the Mississippi. Today, approximately 27 percent of the Netherlands is actually below sea level and this area is home to over 60 percent of the country's population of 15.8 million people.

Once America gets over the shock and grief of loss we will reclaim New Orleans as we reclaimed San Francisco after the earthquake and fire, Pearl Harbor after the attack, New York after 9/11—perhaps with a few hints from our friends the Dutch.