""Damn straight - we are going to be the laughing stock of countries that have been doing this for hundreds of years in the North Sea.""
"No. They don't have hurricanes."
The dykes survived the hurricane - thelake never surged over the top - these dykes simply failed below their design level
that's "dikes". What you're talking about is different.
...and they DID top out. There's also groundwater surging up into the low spots. Is this the first thread on this that you've read today?
http://www.thehollandring.com/1953-ramp.shtml
"The Dutch struggle against the waters.
In February 1953 the Netherlands faced disaster when the dikes protecting the southwest of the country were breached by the joint onslaught of a hurricane-force northwesterly wind and exceptionally high spring tides. The flood came in the night without warning, a fateful combination of freak high tides and gale-force winds that killed 1,835 people. Almost 200,000 hectares of land was swamped, 3,000 homes and 300 farms destroyed, and 47,000 heads of cattle drowned. It was The Netherlands' worst disaster for 300 years.
Flooding caused by storm surges were nothing new to the Netherlands, but this time the nation was stunned by the extent of a disaster unparalleled for centuries."
> ""Damn straight - we are going to be the laughing stock of countries that have been doing this for hundreds of years in the North Sea.""
Where's that Dutch boy with the spare finger to stick in the dike, when you need him? Seriously though, North Sea storms, bad as they may be, don't compare, I think, to the power and water volume of a tropical hurricane.