{"id":484,"date":"2004-01-31T11:10:29","date_gmt":"2004-01-31T14:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=484"},"modified":"2004-01-31T11:10:29","modified_gmt":"2004-01-31T14:10:29","slug":"storm-surge-of-1953","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=484","title":{"rendered":"Storm surge of 1953"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=dropcap>T<\/span>he BBC&#8217;s &#8216;On this day&#8217; (<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/onthisday\/hi\/dates\/stories\/january\/31\/newsid_2505000\/2505913.stm\">January 31st of 1953<\/a>) item got me sidetracked.\n<\/p>\n<p class=quote>&#8220;A car ferry has sunk in the Irish Sea in one of the <em>worst gales<\/em> in living memory claiming the lives of up to 130 passengers and crew.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>The item reminded me of the event that unfolded a day after that disaster: the Dutch flood disaster of February 1953 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehollandring.com\/1953-ramp.shtml\">that killed and drowned 1,853 people<\/a>.  Immediately after the storm, a commission was set up to advise the government how to protect the country from spring tides, which accumulated in the project the Dutch call the &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zeeland.nl\/zeeland\/kort\/deltawerken\/\">Deltawerken<\/a>&#8216;. However,  the completion of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.planetware.com\/photos\/NL\/NLOOS1.HTM\">biggest part of the project<\/a>  introduced a couple of other problems, most of them <em>environmental<\/em>.  In my younger days when studying civil engineering, I remember the lively discussions about the disadvantages of using and building these kind of giant dams.\n<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Anyway: The English Met-Office has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.met-office.gov.uk\/education\/historic\/flood.html\">an educational page<\/a> about that February storm surge, which includes an animated (GIF) picture and a long explanation how the surge became so deadly:\n<\/p>\n<p class=quote>&#8220;The surge originated in the waters off the north-east coast of Scotland and was amplified as it travelled first southwards along the eastern coasts of Scotland and England, and then north-east along the coast of the Netherlands. It reached Ijmuiden in the Netherlands around 0400 UTC on 1 February.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>Also note that the document tells how the surge was succesfully predicted by both English and Dutch Meteo offices: the surprising factor was naturally the speed of the surge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC&#8217;s &#8216;On this day&#8217; (January 31st of 1953) item got me sidetracked. &#8220;A car ferry has sunk in the Irish Sea in one of the worst gales in living memory claiming the lives of up to 130 passengers and &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=484\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}