Watersnoodpad (2015)
The Disaster in countless tragic stories

1953. The suffering of thousands crammed into a single figure. A word with a deep, dark connotation, like 9/11 to the Americans. But what do I actually know about The Disaster? Bare facts, black and white images from the cinema news of broken dikes, drowned land and blown up cows with their legs grotesquely in the air. What exactly happened and why? Fortunately there is now the Watersnoodpad (water disaster trail), where I can combine hiking and curiosity.

The Disaster
The storm lasts twenty hours and pushes water up to our coasts along the entire length of the North Sea. On Saturday, January 31 1953, people on Vlissingen boulevard defy the wind blowing with hurricane force carefree. In the course of the evening in many villages floodboards are pushed into place and concerned dike guards, fishermen and farmers keep a close eye on the rising water. But the dikes do not fail that evening. The dikes fail at 3 a.m. A wall of water, sometimes four meters high, floods the land. In the affected area 1,836 people drown and tens of thousands of animals, 100,000 people are evacuated, 4,500 buildings are destroyed and ten times more are damaged. Almost 200,000 hectares of land is flooded. Those are the dry facts. But history is more than just facts.

Day 1: Zierikzee - Nieuwerkerk, 25 km
The Watersnoodpad starts at De Val, a parking lot on the spot where the Zeeland Bridge curves gracefully towards South Beveland. The spot appears to have been chosen at random. Apart from an empty restaurant, there is nothing of interest here. Certainly nothing to do with the Disaster. The water of the Oosterschelde flows gently towards the sea. I cross the dike and start this first day of hiking along a construction site where the sharp clatter of stones and the heavy smell of warm asphalt plague my senses. On the horizon the blunt tower of Zierikzee and it doesn't take long before I reach the city canal, an elegant white bridge and on the other side the impressive city wall, with a huge gate. This is what a rich medieval fortress must have looked like. Massive, with battlements and turrets. The wealth lasted until the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Zierikzee prospered with a saltsales and a madder growers. After that decline set in and there was great poverty. In front of the brown-yellow city wall stands the statue of a woman with a raised arm, a child leaning against her legs, seeking protection. The statue symbolizes the strong Zeelanders who keep on going despite everything. I turn left into the harbor quarter, whose houses were only protected from the water by a high quay. The front row of houses itself formed a kind of dike. When the water came over the quay, the residents would put flood boards in front of the doors and closed the cracks with greasy clay. The streets leading to the harbor were also closed off with flood boards. And that is clearly necessary, because I follow a street at least a meter down. Blue stones indicate where the flood boards would have been placed and the slots on both sides to hold the boards in place are still there. Unfortunately, the floodboards did not stop the water. Almost the entire neighborhood was destroyed. At the beautiful fish market a stone has been bricked in which indicates the water level of 1953. About three meters high.
Hiking is slow through the city, there is just so much to see. The Fat Tower, which is officially called Saint Lievens Monstertower. It should have been 137 meters high, but due to a lack of money, the construction halted at 56 meters. It's a strange thing, bricked up on all sides except for a small door and strangely detached from the church a few yards away. Fearing that its construction would damage the church, the tower was built a short distance away from it. They would later be connected, but when the church burned down, the tower still stood. The new, more modern church was never connected to the tower and the two different architectural styles are quite clash. Then I pass the Templar House from the 14th century and the Gasthuischurch with its ornate gallery. A gate full of attractive nuns and a gable stone from 1631. After a look at the beautiful Nothern gate, which reminds me of the fortress, I leave the center. A quiet, green street, appropriately called ‘Walk’, and a somewhat larger road take me to a park with a small lake. This Kaaskenswater dates from 1575 when the dikes were breached to protect Zierikzee against an attack by the Spaniards. In the park there are signs at various trees and at first I think they are the species names. It is only when I see hearts hanging from a few trees and start to read that I realize that these are memory and anniversary trees. On the other side of a tunnel I arrive at the cemetery. Half hidden behind the bushes at the auditorium, a monument to the 24 killed Zierikzee's. Whole families, judging by the names. The day suddenly gets a lot colder. I now leave the city behind for good and follow the main road until I am allowed to turn to a green grass dike. A grass dike like there are hundreds in the Netherlands. Which we take for granted and trust blindly. I try to imagine there being water on both sides here in 1953, but I can't. I, who have never experienced the slightest flood and feel completely safe in Zwolle behind the sturdy dike along the IJssel. The enormous amount of water needed to fill these polders alone is unimaginable. No wonder most people just crawled into their box bed on that Saturday night. I hike towards Capelle in the shelter of a high thorn hedge. Once a village with a hundred inhabitants, with a factory for surrogate coffee from chicory roots, a shop and a café. Now there are only a handful of houses. In the small but well-kept cemetery, the monument contains a long list of names. Entire families of four, six, even seven people have been wiped out. And at the very bottom, so tragic I tear up at once, ‘babychild Van der Straten’. It was a boy, born in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Nobody knows what name his parents gave him when they welcomed him into the world. The ramshackle workers' houses that barely survived the first flood collapsed one by one Sunday afternoon during the second. Barely a few hours old, the boy drowned with the whole family.
That does makes you think. Fortunately, shortly afterwards there is the friendly green of a forest, which was planted after the disaster because all the fertile soil was washed away anyway. I walk past a ditch and if I see a bird flying away, I must be mistaken. After all, the water is too low, is it too opaque for a kingfisher? Yet it is so. The kingfisher with its bright blue back flies in front of me and a little later two even fly towards me. Whatever else I encounter, my day is made. After I cross a road, the path continues past a large inland lake. Here again two kingfishers, but now I pay more attention to my feet, because the path is very damp. I climb up to a field to keep my feet dry and arrive at the dike along the Oosterschelde. I taste the salt in the air, because although the plan was to close off the Oosterschelde completely, the fishermen managed to prevent the arm from being closed entirely. I follow the dike to the Watersnoodmuseum, which is located in those four caissons that closed the last breach in the dikes on November 6, 1953. The exhibition starts with dry figures and explains the causes of the disaster. But spring tide? That surprises me, because according to weather experts this is a misunderstanding, based on the latest weather report from the KNMI that night. Spring tide is purely the situation where the difference between ebb and flood is greatest. But on February 1, the spring tide was low and, moreover, the moon was farthest from Earth. Had the sun and moon been in line and the moon had been closer to Earth, the water could have been up to two feet higher. Deeper into the caisson, the stories become more personal. The wicker basket in which baby Teun was placed by his parents and the large bag which contained an airdropped rubber boat and which protected little Arie van den Hoek. Further on all the names of the victims, one wall after another, from floor to ceiling. An awful lot of names, their ages expressed in years, but also in months and days. Even more impressive than this gray list is the multimedia room of various Rotary clubs. In a dimly lit part of the caisson, much of that same list of names is projected onto sand, making them appear to ripple like the water that took their lives. A melancholy voice reads the memories of friends and relatives, giving the names new life. The seven-month-old child who was ill and was therefore allowed to sleep downstairs by the stove. The daughter, who spent a weekend with her fiancé at their family’s place. It  moves  me more than all the facts put together. Once outside, there is the monument, waves crashing through stone walls, as it happened in real life. It is one of those monuments that is so fitting that I cannot imagine another artist making anything else. I hike past the caissons to Ouwerkerk, where only a bit around the church is dry that Sunday morning. There is no time for a church service. The pastor helps make a raft to rescue people from their homes. In the cemetery the disaster is depicted in two hands. The one disappearing under the waves and the other still clinging to life. There are tiles with names. Some are actually buried here. For others there is only a memorial stone, as their bodies were never found. On a wall near the church another water mark, this one at eye level. But the church is on a flood hill after all. Descending again I pass the Swedish and Norwegian street and there are still wooden gift houses with names like Melhus, Hamer and Köngsberg.  It pleases me the generosity of our northern neighbors is still being honored. Especially now that so many appeal to our generosity and so many have forgotten that we too have depended on the generosity of others. At the time, however, this generosity raised eyebrows, certainly among the wealthy peasants, who did not like the fact that the workers were raised to their level of prosperity by all the gifts and compensation. Before the disaster, a sofa was an unknown piece of furniture in many households, after that practically everyone had one. "Give us this day our daily bread and a flood every year," scorned the farmers. The last part takes me around a lake and then fairly straight to Nieuwerkerk.

Day 2: Nieuwerkerk - Dreischor, 29 km
The day starts at a cemetery, where there is a statue which, like the one in Ouwerkerk, was donated by the municipality of Enschede. The bird with broken wing symbolizes the people who narrowly escaped danger. But also the soul that leaves the body of the people who did not make it.
Nieuwerkerk is so far from the sea dikes that the water only reaches the village in the morning. It’s low tide and that is why the water does not rise so quickly. After that, these people too have to flee to their attics. The 1st flood makes few victims, but on Sunday afternoon the water comes towards the village from two sides. In the end, 290 people died here. A few blocks away, small metal waves on house walls indicate the water level. Somehow I think they look cheaper than the bricked-in stones, not fitting for a disaster of this magnitude. The mosaic above the village hall, the disaster night and the prosperity afterwards colorfully depicted, is beautiful. Slowly I swing out of the village until I reach an orchard full of low trees hung with ripe pears and blushing apples. I continue to a dike that takes me to a major road and take a shortcut by crossing straight, instead of taking the detour to the traffic lights nearby. On the other side of the road the dike continues as a grassy path. The Rampaartsdijk. Many people lucky enough to be able to climb on a roof and survive the night with its strong winds, snow and hail, drifted against this dike with the storm. That did not mean that you were safe.  An enormous amount of wreckage drifted in the same direction, forming a 20 meter wide barrier. Some people slid under the wreckage, the roof and all, and still drowned. Others were rescued by brave daredevils who, at the risk of their own lives, made a path of planks and straw bales across the unstable wreckage. Shortly afterwards I reach Opsterland, where another monument awaits in the cemetery. Here too a number of gift houses, this time from Sweden. The street name, Sandströmstraat, still refers to it. While the horizon turns a deeper blue, I cross the polder. First on an asphalt road, later a long grass dike. The grass waves around my feet and the storm I suspect on the horizon blows past much faster than I can hike. Soon I am hiking in a lovely sun and it would be warm, were it not for the fact that the wind is still lashing out furiously. I reach the Oosterschelde with still no idea where to look for Bruinisse. Only when I have passed a mussel farmer do I see the village in the next polder. In Bruinisse, popularly known as ‘Bru’, that night several concerned residents had walked to the quay. But at 3 a.m. the water suddenly dropped. They did not realize that this was because other polders were filling up. Bruinisse was safe for the moment and on Sunday morning fishermen took boats into the flooded polders to rescue people from their roofs. During the day holes appeared in the dike between Oosterland and Bruinisse and at the end of the afternoon Bruinisse also flooded. The storm had already subsided, so the water calmly entered the polder. People who no longer had a home turned to the church.
I hike through the polder, past a mooring fishing boat and a shipyard, until I am allowed to enter the village and take a rest at the Allevo nursing home, which contributed to the creation of this trail. Although this leg is a bit longer than yesterday, it feels longer too, although the church clock tells me that I am not hiking very slowly. I leave the village via a holiday park and I am happy to be out of the wind. Of course I am back in the open field along the dikes. I never realized how many there are. In Zwolle you only see them along rivers and canals. Here they are in the middle of the landscape, where the water seems so far away. But that is an illusion. The Grevelingen is only a few kilometers away and the next village badly hit by the disaster is already approaching. It is Sirjansland, ‘Sir’, where people are already being warned at 2 am that the dikes are about to break. Most don't believe it. Here too I visit the cemetery, here too a monument with names. Including three families who lost six or seven family members. It takes my breath away each time.
Just before the Dijkwater nature reserve, a former inlet of the Grevelingen, it starts to rain and it starts to rain so badly that I soon decide to put on my cape again. I recognize the trail from the Flood Walk that I previously hiked from Ouwerkerk and realize how bizarre it is to be able to say here, so far from home, that a grassland looks familiar to me, that I have been here before. The grass does what the rain can't, my feet are getting pretty wet now. I hardly notice It now, but in 1953 the dikes along Dijkwater, where the harbor Beldert was located, were a lot lower than the dikes on the north and west side of Schouwen-Duiveland. In the lee of the island the dikes could be a bit lower, the water never gets that high there, is the idea. And while the sturdy dikes on the north and west sides still hold out in the stormy night, the water flows in through the back door. After the disaster, the Dijkwater was reclaimed and only a warehouse remains of the harbor. Where in the past ships were unloaded, there’s now a sawmill. I walk past the mill into Dreischor. Because I just missed the bus, I take a break in the museum café. Then I walk around and take the bus back to Zierikzee.

Day 3: Dreischor - Renesse, 36 km
The driver is amazed when I board his bus in the morning. “Why would you want to go to Dreischor? That never happens!” Well, I do and it’s happening. When I get out, it just starts to drip. A soft drizzle that gets you pretty wet after a few hours. I don't dislike water, as long as it's not too much. In Dreischor, the water came as early as Saturday night "like a flock of 1,000 sheep," according to an eyewitness. No rescue crews or shouting from neighbor to neighbor here. People sat paralyzed in their attics and waited in a sinister silence.
Just at the edge of the village is the cemetery with a monument to the 32 fellow villagers who died here. The names are on the back of the stone and this time I don’t look for them. It's too depressing, too much. And I have not even experienced the disaster myself. I leave the village and on the dike I cowardly choose the asphalt where the route heads to a grassy path. I want to keep my feet dry as long as possible. Eventually I do have to go onto a grassy path and this time there is no adjacent dike with asphalt road. In no time my shoes and socks are soaked. I arrive at Noordgouwe, a ring of beautiful houses built around the church. There is no water in this village on Sunday, but a stream of refugees from the surrounding polders is accommodated as much as possible. Yet the water is not far and there is already a hole in the Dreischorsedijk. Enterprising residents are able seal it with sandbags. Then it turns out that there are no flood boards in the culvert in the Schouwersdijk near Kakkersweel. A team of men empty the province depot. They drive roadside posts into the ground and throw sandbags between them. This way Noordgouwe stays dry on Sunday. Kakkersweel is also the place where Merientje Vis performs a heroic deed on Monday morning. Water is already flushing through the culvert, but with a rope tied to his waist he ventures into the water and holds on to the wooden posts. Other men hold on to this rope and close the hole with a farm wagon, sandbags, rocks, and whatever else they can use to close the hole. And so the gap stays closed. Noordgouwe is one of the few villages that remains dry. Years later, Merientje Vis got his own street in the village he saved.
From Noordgouwe I walk to Zonnemaire, which was also spared during the disaster night. This part of the island is slightly higher and the floods hit less hard here than on the other side of Schouwen-Duiveland. This makes it a base for rescuers and relief organizations. When I put my poncho back on, I take a wrong turn. I hike back a bit and pick up the route again. Just like yesterday, I cross countless polders and dikes and pass through a hamlet with the appropriate name Dijkhuisjes (dikehouses). Just when I think it will be a beautiful day, it starts to drizzle again and a lot too. I am also hiking on a shell path, which I really dislike. I always get bits in my shoe and shells are sharp enough to hurt. In Brouwershaven I take a break at a café, which turns out to be a Chinese take-away. I travel along the harbor to Den Oss and then into the polder again. There is not much to see along the trail and the kilometer-long cycle path along a canal makes the route feel very long. Moreover, there is a loop that seems rather unnecessary to me, only after Scharrendijke does the trail turn around, so that I still pass two beautiful windmills. I would have liked to stop here today, but it’s still early and I nibble away at tomorrow's stage by continuing to Renesse. That is 1 km across the beach, where the sky and water have the same milky blue color. Magnificent. It's drizzling again, but just before the end I don't feel for the flickering of plastic in my ears. I'll dry. Just before Renesse, which also remained dry in 1953, the trail takes me into a grassland. This path is not mowed and there are also heavy thorn plants among the grass. My feet, which were just damp again instead of soaking wet, are getting soaked again. And then I walk into the center and a lightbulb goes off in my head. I walked the Fjoertoer here. As a result, I know exactly how to find the way to the bus stops.

Day 4: Renesse - Neeltje Jans, 32 km
This stage is the most beautiful so far. Ever changing, the forest and dunes are a welcome change after days of polder and wide expanses. Yet this day also starts with a cemetery. This time not a monument to disaster victims, but to ten resistance fighters who were hanged by the Germans in WWII. Distracted by the monument, I take a wrong turn and I am quite a bit on my way before I find out and return to the cemetery. I walk into a beautiful path, a tunnel of trees. I hike around the Vroonpond, created because sand was excavated for dike repair. A few more light yellow gift houses and I reach a dune area. Wavy dunes, puddles here and there. A lust for the eye. It’s still a decent stroll to Burgh-Haamstede and it starts to rain again. Fortunately I am still quite dry underneath the trees. In the village, various school classes cycle around on some sort of treasure hunt. I hike in front of the beautiful castle, through a park where a castle stood in the Middle Ages and then to the cemetery here too. On the other side of the village I come back to the dunes and there it is hard to plod through the sand. Still, I really enjoy the trees, which I have missed heavily in recent days. Eventually I arrive at the Storm Surge Barrier, also known as the eighth wonder of the world. By being able to close off the Oosterschelde, the risk of flooding is reduced to once every 4,000 years. Just as I walk up the flood defense, it starts to rain again. The combination with the strong wind makes it extra tough. The route is not clearly marked and with that rain I cannot read my guidebook here either. I follow the asphalt road almost the entire length of Neeltje Jans and only when I pass a tunnel under the road, I take a look and see I should have walked along the beach.  Back towards the Deltapark, I do take the path through the dunes, so that I have less problems with the wind. And it has become dry, that makes a difference. Here I have to go through the Slufter, a nature reserve that is exposed to the tide. A sign warns that the path is flooded at high tide and advises bare feet. A wide strip of water about 30 cm deep crosses the path. Well, my feet are already wet anyway. I ignore the advice and quickly jump through the water, so that both my shoes are good and well soaked again. The markings here are not reliable, but I follow the red and white lines of the Deltatrail and thus arrive at the reserve pier that marks the Delta Park from afar. In the park a multimedia spectacle about the disaster, although the emphasis is a bit too much on the aftermath, the heroic Dutch people who protect their country against floods. I also go into the barrier, the bit under the road where the generators are and where an exhibition is set up. It is high tide and the water flows with immense force through the open lock gates into the interior. The water level mark from 1953 is well above the point at which the locks are now closed. I try to imagine this body of water flowing into the unprotected polders. It is miracle not more people died. The Netherlands is known as a country that knows how to deal with water, which provides advice worldwide, from Bangladesh to America, on how to keep precious fields and large cities dry. But before 1953, our dikes where weak and dike management was a mess, fragmented and amateurish. This disaster changed that. We are safe now because of this disaster. This realization hits home here on the storm surge barrier.

Day 5: Neeltje Jans - Zierikzee, 30 km
 It is dry when I get off the bus at Neeltje Jans and I enjoy the view across the sea. This time it’s low tide and the water is pushing through the narrow locks again with enormous force. It is quite sobering to realize that the same amount of water poured out twice a day through the holes in the dikes across Schouwen Duiveland with the same force. At the foot of the Oosterscheldekering I pass through a tunnel under the road. I climb across grassland to the dike along the Oosterschelde and slowly hike towards Zierikzee. After two kilometers I arrive at the harbor of Burghsluis. Here, on that disaster night, the dike failed and the small polder of 4 hectares filled with water up to 3.85 meters high in 15 minutes. In the row of 13 workers' houses, ten people drowned.
After the harbor I hike further along the water. There’s Muralt wall still on the dike, a small concrete wall that gave the dike extra height, after an idea by Esquire De Muralt. It turned out to be a cheap, but poor alternative to raising a dike, and the walls did not stop the water in 1953. The cycle path runs underneath, but I choose the height of the dike so that I also see across the landscape behind it, a patchwork quilt of meadows and seepage pools. A plump tower appears on the horizon, the church tower of Koudekerke. Although the tower is all that remains of the village, there is still a place name sign on both sides of it. Very strange. In the tower is an exhibition of Natuurmonumenten (a Dutch private organization protecting nature and wildlife), in which it is explained that the sea was nibbling away at the land more and more, at which new dikes were built further and further inland. Ultimately, the newest dike was located behind the village even and the houses were demolished brick by brick. The tower remained, as a beacon for the fishermen. From the top of the tower I have a beautiful view across the country. A beautiful mix of red and green grass, seepage water and birds. I hike on, leave the road and exchange it for the ring dike at Schelphoek. In 1953 this was a hamlet just outside Serooskerke. The largest breach in the entire disaster area was created in this sea dike. The dike had disappeared over a length of 500 meters and this breach could no longer be closed. A new dike was built around the opening with caissons and is was closed after seven months. Unlike the caisson in which the Flood Museum is located, these still shows clear signs of haven been floated. At the top there are several mooring posts and you can climb on them via a ladder. The trail takes me further, through a grassland into Serooskerke, where there’s yet another monument near the church, full of names of families. Part of the church remains dry during the disaster night and a fire is lit on the stone floor to keep warm. From the church tower you can clearly see what the disaster has caused. Water, nothing but water can be seen.
From the church I walk back to the dike and the water, which is never far away on Schouwen-Duiveland. On the horizon I can already see the blunt tower of Zierikzee and the Zeeland Bridge spreads across the water to the other side. Here I come to another inlet dike, which runs right through De Prunje nature reserve. I take a short trip to the look-outtower and it’s worth it. The cycle path runs in a U-shape and a cow is perfectly positioned. The combination of red grass and water continues to fascinate. I feel like it takes a long time before I return to Zierikzee, but eventually I hike towards the houses, along a green dike at the back and then around the city to the harbor for historic ships. Here the route crosses the first day’s route and I consider I could just as well have started here as at De Val. For a moment I consider leaving it at that. My place to stay is just a little further. But no, I want to finish the trail as it should be, by the book. On the other side of the harbor I arrive at a grass dike and soon I regret my decision. These are not dikes made to hike on. No proper agreements have been made with the farmers. Sheep graze here and they are surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. The fences are just low enough to step over, but it’s not pleasant. The route goes back to the Oosterschelde, but work is being done on that dike. I see cranes, trucks and tractors. The fact that fresh soil has been dumped makes me decide to turn off to the Zeeland Bridge a dike earlier. This brings me back to my starting point and the circle is complete. The end of a very impressive path that touched me deeply. I was born years after the Disaster, but I am Dutch. Water and dikes are in our blood. And the Disaster and its victims are in my heart.