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Emergency dwellings on the outskirts of the town of Zierikzee (on the island of Schouwen en
Duiveland). These dwellings were constructed in the Netherlandspartly from materials presented
by Netherlands firms.
The experience gained during and after the late war has shown that it
takes many years to reconstruct towns and villages which have been de
stroyed often in a few moments. It is clear, therefore, that even with the
best of intentions and the greatest effort it will be impossible to effect the
reconstruction of the flooded areas in a relatively short time.
In many places the repair to damaged houses and farm buildings was
taken in hand straight away. In addition, a start was made with new
construction wherever possible.
In some villages the destruction was so great that a number of prepar
atory measures were necessary before reconstruction could be com
menced. It needs hardly be pointed out that advantage is being taken of
this opportunity to effect improvements from the point of view of town-
planning.
In the meantime the population concerned, which had partly been
evacuated, had to be returned to their homes as soon as possible. Although
the obvious solution which suggested itself was to build a large number
of emergency dwellings, this plan was promptly rejected as impracticable.
Only in the case of the island of Schouwen, which suffered most of the
flooding and was not dry until the end of the year, some 350 emergency
dwellings were built, chiefly to accommodate those people whose presence
in the island was required in connection with the reconstruction work.
In its efforts to provide as many families as possible with a new home
in a reasonably short time the Netherlands received generous support
from abroad. The Netherlands government and the Red Cross received a
gift of some 800 wooden houses from Finland, Norway, Austria, Sweden
and Denmark.
The reconstruction of the stricken areas will be accompanied by a
number of difficulties arising from the economic structure of some of
these areas. This applies particularly to the islands. Being agricultural
areas, they lack the apparatus and the labour potential required to carry
out an extensive building programme in a short space of time. Poor
communications and a shortage of accommodation make it difficult to
attract building contractors from the mainland. A direct result of this is
that the building costs are unduly high as compared with those in other
parts of the country. Consequently, special measures had to be taken.
Although the total volume of housebuilding in the Netherlands is still
restricted to certain limits, the rate of building in the areas which suffered
from the flooding will not be affected. With respect to these areas ar
rangements have been made to build as many houses as were lost in the
shortest possible time.
