On one calamitous day early in 1953, a howling northwester teamed with a wild spring tide. The resulting floods were the most disastrous to afflict The Netherlands in five centuries. Hardest hit were 1,300 square miles of Rhine and Meuse delta lands in The Netherlands' southwest, where tidal surges roared up estuaries and rivers, shattered 67 dikes, drowned 1,800 people and engulfed 375,000 acres of farmlands. In the aftermath, the public alarm was profound, and engineers swiftly blueprinted a $650 million plan to safeguard the delta forevermore by damming up four of...
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