Today, we woke up somewhat early to go visit the Deltapark Neeltje Jans. It was essentially like a museum and mini amusement park combined, and it educated us on the Deltaworks as well as the North Sea Flood of 1953. This storm had catastrophic effects on people living near coastal areas of the Netherlands. Over 1800 people were killed in Zeeland, the Netherlands, making it the worst natural disaster in the Netherlands since the middle ages.
In order to prevent something like this from happening in the future, the Delta Works were built between the 1950’s and 1990’s. The Delta Works are not one specific thing, but rather a collection of flood prevention structures including dams, dykes, and storm surge barriers. The storm surge barriers themselves are controlled by a button that closes the gates. This only happens once every few years luckily, however its existence is vital to prevent serious disasters. They can handle water levels up to 5.8 meters above typical sea level- for context, during the 1953 storm, the water level was about 4.5 meters above sea level. It was really cool seeing the Delta Works in person- they’re quite the engineering marvel! After the walking tour, we took a boat out to get a closer look at the Delta Works. It was a nice little excursion, and I really enjoyed being on the water!
After we got off, we had the rest of the day to explore the rest of the park on our own. They had a little water park area as well as seal exhibits, where they were doing a seal show. Afterwards, I went to a small aquarium where I saw some cool animals like lobsters and sharks. There was also a storm simulator that had fans to simulate the wind from the 1953 storm.
Overall, it was a fun day, and I learned so much about the Netherlands’ flood prevention strategies!