Delta Works

We traveled by bus this morning on our optional tour of the Delta Works at the Delta park, Neeltje Jan's. This southern part of the Netherlands is a huge delta and the Dutch have reclaimed huge portions of this land from the sea by using dikes and pumping the water out.
But over the years, dikes have broken and floods have occurred. In 1953, a huge storm brewed off the shore of the Netherlands and when the vicious northwest winds combined with higher than usual tides and driving rain, over 1800 people lost their lives.
Then the government started building a series of dams to prevent such a disaster from ever occurring again.
They started by vibrating the sand at the bottom of the sea to compact it. They covered the sand with blankets filled with gravel and rocks that became the foundation to hold up the pillars of the long dikes. These dikes have gates in them that can open to let the salt water through, or closed to stop surge waves and prevent floods. It was an amazing engineering feat and so far it's worked perfectly!Lue lisää