Talk:North Sea flood of 1953

A lot of Guilders
I'd say 895 Million guilder is a lot of money, period. back then or now (if we still had guilder of course) YggdrasilsRoot 19:18, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I've removed it. Tomer TALK 23:53, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

What part of Holland?
The section on "The Groenendijk" first refers to "northern Holland", then "Holland", then "South Holland", then "Holland" again. Which is correct?
 * I have no idea. All I had to work with when I did the copyediting was what it said in the article.  I wasn't even sure if it meant "Holland" the provinces, or "Holland", the still fairly common English name for the whole country (i.e., the Netherlands).  Tomer TALK  23:53, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
 * Its really confusing, but the official name of Holland is the Netherlands. There are 2 provinces that have the name Holland, South-Holland and North-Holland. South-Holland was under direct threat in the "The Groenedijk" section, North-Holland in a lesser degree. I might go and fix it, but I'm too tired atm.Niels Brons 23:16, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I changed the section and gave it a more "appealing" title. Nobody is interested in the Groenendijk. The heading "A disaster prevented" is more interesting. I also cleared the list with inundations, trying to make it more understandable for non-Dutch readers (Allthough I doubt if all Dutch people will know were the mentioned villages and towns are).Blue Henk 17:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

UK biased?
Is it me, or this article is UK-biased? I'm not English nor Dutch... After reading the article I understand that the flood was more important in the Netherlands in every aspect, but the facts concerning the Netherlands are presented always after those concerning the UK.

Well, indeed, there exists a List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom but not a List of natural disasters in the Netherlands nor List of natural disasters by country. The same can be said about List of United Kingdom disasters by death toll and List of Netherlands disasters by death toll... --euyyn 23:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree, but only because this is the English language Wikipedia. I haven't checked, but I'd guess the reverse is true of the Dutch language version of this article. 81.77.17.131 19:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to reverse that order, so the information more relevant to the flood, the Netherlands' effects, are presented first. Anybody disagrees? --euyyn 01:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Completely agree with new order - it's always bugged me that the UK stuff came first (and I'm British). English-language Wikipedia means "Wikipedia written in the English language", not "Wikipedia that thinks England is more important". JackyR | Talk 22:55, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * In all fairness, the order probably represented the chronological order of events, as the storm surges work their way anti-clockwise around the North Sea basin, migrating down the east coast of England to Belgium then across to the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.Lacunae (talk) 20:12, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I doubt it, the spelling Dike indicates US English
I've corrected dike to the dyke - the standard UK and Dutch usage, dike is a US transliteration.

The article ends with a comment about more flooding being likely due to rising sea levels due to "climate change". Apart from the general point that so-called climate change is now being challenged as a theory, there is no evidence that sea levels are rising at any other than the natural rate of increase of the last hundred years.


 * They might care to dispute that in Tuvalu [] 87.81.230.195 (talk) 05:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Even if we ignore the documented climate change and measured rise in sea level, the North Sea coastline is falling. During the last Ice Age Britain was covered in thick heavy glaciers. As the ice retreated Northwards, North Britain (ie. Scotland) was depressed by the weight of the ice and Britain pivoted about the English Midlands like a Seesaw raising South East England. Since the ice has gone Scotland is bouncing back whilst South East England is descending and taking the North Sea with it. OrewaTel (talk) 10:44, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Movies
About ten years ago I saw a movie about the flood of 1953, set in Holland. It was black and white and had to have some original footage. It was about two little children, wicked stepmother etc, surviving the flood, and ending up in a hospital ship. I can't find any reference anywhere to this movie. I know of a man who volunteered in helping with the rescue teams during the events of 1953 and would love to see this movie. Anyone can help? Add to the list of movie references? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.104.54.153 (talk) 16:54, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The pop culture references are a little weird in general, that scifi bok about a flood caused by molten icecaps goes in a global warming context, not here... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.224.252.10 (talk) 12:11, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism or incompetence?
Someone has mentioned "Mississippi", "New Orleans" etc. in the second paragraph, even though it has no relevance to the subject and isn't even in English sentences. I suspect vandalism, but could someone with pertinent knowledge please have a look and rewrite where necessary? Thanks. Harfarhs (talk) 17:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Lede needs tidy up or rewrite
Can I second the comment above - that the lede seems to be somewhat unintelligible. If there is something of value there maybe it could be moved to elsewhere in the article - maybe something for someone with some knowledge of the field. Cheers. Stevebritgimp (talk) 14:19, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've taken out the confusing section from the lede which was added relatively recently, it'll still be in the history but I'll also paste it here (see below) for reference. If it's relevant it can then easily be incorporated back into the main article but I really doubt it's relevant to the lede section. MorganaFiolett (talk) 12:38, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Cut content:

It is usually the failure of levee and subsidence, degradation by use, collapse of part of sea berm, beach scour and defence barriers that lead to slip and slump wash, flows and inundation; much of the land was below the level of tide and the same events happened in the Boscastle landslide and the Lynton and Lynmouth 1952, Severn levee over spill 1972 December, Mississippi 1993, New Orleans, as opposed to a flood incident in Mozambique in 2000, in which the area was somewhat protected by its long river coast. In the North Sea Flood, the highland and plain formed floods could not drain out as a result of such negative conditions, given that it only requires a slight over spill to gradually flood a basin.

Dutch translation
I've changed the Dutch translation from "Watersnoodramp" to "Watersnood". On the Dutch Talk page for this article, it has been argued that "nood" and "ramp" mean the same thing. According to the leading Dutch dictionary (Van Dale) "watersnoodramp" is a proper word and it is in fact frequently used, even in the Dutch version of this article. However, the title of the Dutch article is "Watersnood van 1953". I'll make a note there to see what the deal is.Meridwyn (talk) 00:56, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Not an improvement. Current usage is "watersnoodramp". The older word makes me think of a song about Zaltbommel. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 01:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Current usage in your area, maybe. In any case, I'm going by the title of the Dutch article, which uses Watersnood. Meridwyn (talk) 12:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC) EDIT: forgot to sign in.
 * Speaking with a Dutch co-worker, while "nood" and "ramp" mean pretty much the same thing (a bit like the difference between "calamity" and "disaster" in English), "De Watersnoodramp" commonly refers to this one event. It is burned into the memories of the older generation and often remembered on 1 February each year.  Astronaut (talk) 14:31, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Just want to chip in and say that "nood" and "ramp" do not mean the same thing. "Nood" means "distress", "ramp" means "disaster". The term "watersnoodramp" could be argued to be a pleonasm (as a distaster obviously always involves distress), but "Watersnoodramp" is frequently used and a good way to distinguish the events of 1953 from other floods which might more generically be termed "watersnood" (unless one of couse consitently says "de Watersnood van 1953"). Tom (talk) 11:46, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The lead is misleading
The first sentence makes it sound like this was a nature disaster, but after the flood it was concluded that the disaster was caused by human factors. We chose to live in areas below sea level and we chose to live there protected only by dykes that were too low, too feeble, and too ill-maintained. This was precisely why the Delta Plan was started. We could and probably should have chosen to do any of a number of things before the flood. For example, we could have abandoned areas where it was no longer possible to pay for dyke maintenance in the aftermath of the Second World War. Or we could have maintained the dykes anyway, sacrificing some post-war economic development. Or we could have set up rescue plans and the like to mitigate the effects of a disaster if it should occur. The issue was known before the disaster, but nothing was done about it. At the very least we should have been honest about the situation, but we chose to stick our heads in the sand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.201.88.231 (talk) 19:43, 1 February 2018 (UTC)


 * It is possible to argue that all disasters are man-made. (It is the fault of tsunami victims that they chose to live near a coast that was only 5000km from an earthquake zone etc.) In this case, more attention could have been paid to repairing and reinforcing dykes but this was 1953. It was only 8 years since the area had been devastated by war (including deliberate destruction of dykes by retreating German forces) and there were far more urgent things to do rather than preparing for a 1 in 500 year event. It is difficult in 2018 to understand the low-tech impoverished Europe of 1953. OrewaTel (talk) 01:21, 15 September 2020 (UTC)


 * A man-made disaster? In many places the dykes held but were simply overtopped. Why? Because it was spring tide and the storm surge prevented the tide to go out after that, making low tide just as high as high tide. And then the new high tide came in. Neglect of the dykes was a contributory factor but that was a known issue. The government was aware of the situation and the first proposals were made in 1942 by Johan van Veen. But the extensive war damage delayed action until it was too late. The Banner  talk 08:51, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Earlier events
The effects on the North Sea coasts are the best known, but they weren't the first of the 1953 storm. All on 31 January 1953:
 * 1) Michael Griffith (trawler). Sank. 13 dead. (See List of shipwrecks in 1953).
 * 2) MV Princess Victoria. Sank. 133 dead.
 * 3) There may have been at least one other sinking with loss of life off the west coast of Britain on 31 January.

IMO this article should (a) include that information and (b) be retitled to Great Storm of 1953.

A Timewatch video, not an official upload so not WP:RS – YouTube link. Narky Blert (talk) 00:31, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should split the article in one about the storm and one about the flooding?
 * No, sorry, I strongly oppose your proposal. It is the flooding around the North Sea that made the storm infamous. 85% of all deaths were land based. Of the victims at sea, maybe 170/180 perished outside the North Sea, less then half.
 * Most of the major coastal protection projects are at or near the shore of the North Sea. The Banner talk 01:08, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

The Guava
The fishing vessel the Guava sailed from Lowestoft on January 30th 1953 and perished in the great flood. Its last message picked up on 31st January saying they were going to dodge the storm. All 11 hands onboard perished with the ship 188.31.114.197 (talk) 18:16, 30 July 2022 (UTC)