3 Nations Toil
To Mend Dikes
For'Zero Hour'
I
N. Y. HERALD TRIBUNE
FEB
3 1953
Spring Tide Peak Is Due on
the Week End; Blizzard
Sweeps Northern Europe
LONDON, Feb. 12 Tens of
thousands of troops and volun-|
teers battled to reinforce the dikes
of Great Britain, Holland and Bel
gium today as an approaching
zero hour" brought grave threat
of new floods.
The three-nation alert to meet
the ominous mounting of the sea
son's highest tides coincided with
violent blizzards which created
havoc in four other countries—
West Germany, France, Sweden;
and Denmark.
The blizzards, the worst in years,
were in their fifth straight day in
some places. England had its worst
traffic dislocation in years. Only
one main road remained open
from Manchester northward to
Scotland. Drifts, twelve feet deep
in places, blocked the others.
Sandbag Airlift
[The United Press said the
United States is rushing "millions"
of empty sandbags to Britain in
response to an urgent request. The
Washington dispatch said a large
number of the bags are being flown
to England and will arrive by
Saturday.]
A twenty-plane airflift rushed
3,000,000 sandbags from the Con
tinent.
Along the Dutch, British and
Belgian North Sea coasts, devas
tated by floods and storms that
took 2,000 lives twelve days ago
a new threat arose from the spring
tides. These tides will hit then-
peak Sunday, Monday and Tues
day and if lashed by gales might
break over weakened dikes.
General gale warnings were
posted for the next twelve hour:
for the British east coast, where
24,00 service men and volunteers
worked to fill in broken dikes and
reinforce weakenede places.
U. S. Airmen Standby
United States Air Force planes
joined in the airlift flying in sand
bags and other supplies, and 600
American airmen were ordered to
stand by for possible flood duty in
Norfolk. Scores of helicopters were
prepared to help in any evacuation.
Holland got forecasts of strong
winds along her flood-battered
coast, with snow and freezing tem
peratures.
Belgium ordered a state of emer
gency along the seaside, requiring
industrial and other organizations
to keep on twenty-four-hour duty
relays of workers equipped to meet
an emergency. Belgium troops
were filling in the last gaps made
in the dikes along the Scheldt
River, and were trying to complete
the work by Saturday. Some slack
ers were requisitioned for work on
the dikes and were rounded up by
soldiers.
Dikes Still Broken
Despite unremitting work by
thousands of men, scores of dike
breaks remained unrepaired in the
three countries.
On the Continent, blizzards
swept northern France and
blocked roads in the Ardennes
area of Belgium. A few villages in
the Brussels area were flooded by
rising rivers.
Hugh snowdrifts paralyzed traf
fic in Denmark, the Schleswig-
Holstein area of northern Ger
many and in Sweden. The storms
isolated scores of small islands off
Denmark and ice blocked many
ports.
Nurses on Sweden's Oland
Island skiied across snowdrifts as
high as telephone poles to an
swer emergency calls.
