Today we visited the Watersnoodmuseum which is a museum dedicated to sharing the story of the flood of 1953 and how it effected peoples lives. The museum itself is inside the caissons in Ouwerkerk – Zeeland blocking the North Sea. We started by reading about how the storm increased the water levels and broke through the dikes in the Delta, which flooded the nearby towns/villages. The polders (low areas of land) were significantly effected by the flooding and led to a ton of fatalities.

These floods destroyed homes, buildings, and livelihoods, but they also destroyed any form of communication with the outside world. This meant that the island of Schouwen-Duiveland became completely isolated and could not ask for foreign assistance. However, radio technician Peter Hossfeld, using the few spare radio parts that he found in his boss’s workshop in Zierikzee, successfully constructed a makeshift radio transmitter that allowed them to reach outside help. It was astonishing to read about how people are able to use their surroundings in times of desperate measures to produce solutions.

Once finding out about the misfortune that the people of Zierikzee had undergone, people from neighboring towns and countries fled to the distressed villages to lend a helping hand. I thought that the willingness to help each other in times of need shows the sense of community between the Dutch towns. It was truly inspiring to see them all come together and provide goods and services, even if all they could provide was a single blanket. We also saw a list of more than 30 countries who supplied support for this town on a global scale.

Throughout the museum there were personal stories from survivors of the floods, and many of them had lost several of their family members to this disaster. It really put into perspective the dangers of flooding and the importance of a well engineered process. There were so many heart-wrenching stories about objects left behind and people drowning. I felt such empathy for these people that it emphasized how safety should be a main priority when I engineer devices in my future, since so many lives are in the hands of the people designing these structures.

We also saw how artwork was influenced by these events. There were several pieces that tried to capture the suffering and heartbreak that these Dutch people felt during and after the disaster. There were also realistic paintings of what the floods looked like, which provided a visual aid in order to spread awareness of the severity of the flooding. They were beautiful but sickening pieces of art that made me feel extremely emotional.

My favorite part was walking through a replicated house that would have been made and given to a survivor of the flood if their home had been destroyed. I was shocked to see how modern and large the house was since it was completely free. There were three bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, and kitchen. The person who narrated it as her house even said that it was better than her previous house. I thought that the Watersnoodmuseum as a whole was very interactive and informative, and may be up in my top three museums after the Anne Frank museum and the Air and Space museum in Washington, DC. After the museum we went back to the hotel and got a quick dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. See you tomorrow Rotterdam!