Changing Course to Go With the Flow

The afsluitdijk held in 1953. It was further south, where officials had recognized that protection was inadequate, that the winter storm did the most damage, drowning whole families and sending survivors clambering to their rooftops to appeal for help from the heavens.

The response was colossal -- a multibillion-dollar project known as the Deltawerken. Rather than building an earthen wall across the estuaries there, though, the Dutch created a complex system of dams, floodgates and storm-surge barriers, many of which have mechanical elements that allow a relatively natural flow of water and close only during major storms. The crowning achievement is the Oosterschelde barrier, with 62 gates, each the height of a 12-story building, that can be lowered when flooding threatens the low-lying coastal regions.

I drove across that landmark a few years ago with the wind whipping up a salty spray onto our car's windshield and on up into the estuary, which has lost only a fraction of its tidal flow because of the barrier.

N ederland leeft met Water -- "the Dutch live with water" -- is the slogan of an ambitious new national policy. But figuring out how to get along with the enemy is a constantly shifting process that the Dutch, van der Sommen argues, "have to keep rethinking." It is also an expensive process. Despite maintenance costs for flood protection systems that reach about $500 million a year, the Dutch can't afford to stop spending. Ten million lives depend on it.

The Dutch created the Netherlands, but they have never been more aware -- like the people of New Orleans -- of how swiftly God could take them back.

Author's e-mail : sellersf@washpost.com

Frances Stead Sellers, an assistant editor in Outlook, lived in the Netherlands in 2000.