REHABILITATION
SOME FIGURES SHOWING THE EXTENT
OF THE DISASTER*)
course of the day this increased to a mighty stream! The Netherlands
forces, all of whom had been called back from leave, soon received power
ful support from foreign military units. Together they set about the peri
lous task of rescuing the thousands who were still in danger of their lives
and many of whom had already been clinging for hours to the roof of a
house or had climbed into a tree in the bitter cold, waiting for help. In
ducks and small vessels, in helicopters and rubber boats, small groups of
exhausted people left the soil where they were born and where they had
now lost in a single night all that they possessed and, in many cases, their
whole family.
Those who stayed behind in the stricken area were deprived of gas,
electricity and water and were moreover threatened with disease as a
result of infection which might be caused by the numerous carcasses of
animals in the flooded polders.
When, after days and nights of exhausting work, no lives were any
longer in danger and the efforts to recover the victims and the thousands
of drowned animals had reduced to a minimum the danger to health in
the flooded areas, the first practical measures for rehabilitation could be
taken in hand.
The rehabilitation and the rebuilding of houses, farms and businesses,
the repair of road and railway connections, the de-salting and the culti
vation of the land, the building up of the stock of cattle and in particular
the return of the evacuated population, must be preceded, first and fore
most, by the restoration of dykes and dams. A gigantic task. Of the nearly
700 miles of dykes in the flooded areas, about one half has been damaged.
The damage varies from enormous breaches, some more than 600 feet
long, through which the water flows in with great force whole stretches
of dykes have been practically swept away to the hundreds of smaller
gaps which willing hands have been trying to close provisionally since the
first day and on which the work of repair is already in full swing.
The repair of the big breaches in the dykes, however, demands more
serious preparation. To restrict further scouring out of the gaps and to
prevent the extension of the flooded area, long embankments must be
provisionally built up in the breaches, so as to check the water at normal
high tide. At the same time enclosing dykes are being constructed and the
inner dykes reinforced and raised, so that it will be possible, to begin with,
to free the inundated areas of water, section by section.
Thereafter a start will be made with the repair work proper, which
involves very difficult problems. The level of the water on the extensive
flooded plains, too low for ships, too high for excavators, calls for the
construction of emergency harbours. The strong currents running into and
out of the inundated polders make it particularly difficult to put down
"mattresses". Experts even fear that the closure of the dykes on, for in
stance, the island of Schouwen will be more difficult than the repair of
dykes on Walcheren in 1945. Another intricate problem is that of the
supply of materials and the housing of the workers, apparently minor
matters, which however weigh very heavily on account of the impassability
of the terrain. Yet the future is faced with confidence, since not only
centuries of experience of dyke-building and reclamation are available, but
also the experience of the past thirty years gained with the enclosure and
reclamation of the Zuider Zee, which has produced such a splendid tech
nical service.
How long it will take to restore the former appearance of the flooded
land, however, is largely dependent upon the occurence of technical com
plications or of set-backs caused by the forces of nature. That it will
certainly take two years would appear to be a foregone conclusion.
The economic position of the Netherlands, which had undergone a
striking improvement of late, has been dealt a severe blow by the floods.
Although the entire damage can only be roughly estimated as yet, it will
certainly amount to 1,000,000,000 guilders, or five per cent of the nation
al income of the Netherlands. In addition to the visible damage to dykes,
houses, land, cattle and materials, there is also the damage due to loss
of production in an area where nearly every square mile had been put
under cultivation for tillage, dairy-farming or cattle-breeding. Consequent
ly, exports will be bound to recede somewhat, particularly in the agrarian
sector. Fortunately, the export capacity of the Netherlands as a whole
need not suffer, while the industrial capacity of the country is unimpaired.
Nor is there any diminution of the capacity for the accommodation of
tourists.
Thanks to these circumstances and the will of the people of the Nether
lands, spurred on by the cordial sympathy and the practical assistance of
other countries, to overcome this heavy blow, the Netherlands hopes once
more to fulfil the promise held out by the motto of the severely tried
province of Zeeland: "Luctor et Emergo" "I struggle and rise again"
A. Total population of the Netherlands
Population of the stricken areas
Number of dead
Evacuees
10,500,000
664,000
1,500
100,000
B. Area of the Netherlands 8,762,500 acres
Cultivated areas in the Netherlands 5,845,000 acres
Total flooded areas 400,500 acres
Cultived areas under water 332,500 acres 5.7 of the
total cultivated
area of the
Netherlands
of which:
Arable land 205,000 acres 8.9
Meadowland 102,500 acres 3.1
Horticultural soil 25,000 acres 9.4
of the respective
areas
in the Netherlands
On the arable land the following products were cultivated:
Wheat 80,000 acres 6.1
Potatoes 34,250 acres 8.6 I of the total
Sugar beets 37,500 acres 24 Dutch
Pulse 15,000 acres 17.8 production
Flax 18,750 acres 22.7%
Other products of
the soil, e.g. onions 20,000 acres
C. Animals drowned:
25,000 head of cattle
15,000 or 20,000 pigs
2,000 or 3,000 sheep
1,500 horses
These figures have only approximate value, though they have been
based on the most recent figures available.
