Whensday: Flood of summer 2021

Eline woke up early. She was staying down at camp with her family - mom and dad and brother, as well as grandma and cousins. It was a fun week to be together in a very nice place - Bible camp. This morning she was hoping it would be a bit better weather since it had been raining. Especially last night. As she looked out the window she was surprised at how high the creek was that ran next to camp, so she went and woke Grandma to show her. In a very short time - 15 minutes or so - they whole group had gathered as many belongings as they could, loaded the car and driven away from camp. The creek had become a flood. 

That day in 2021 the weather people called it a water bomb. It had rained enormously in a very short period that night. Later, studies would show that some poor decisions had been made as far as opening gates or closing gates. These decisions contributed to some of the extreme damage caused in the various valleys that were flooded by this water bomb. 

At our Bible camp the bubbling brook that runs through cam became a streaming river and swept away all sorts of things. There was a wooden building behind our dormitory which was swept into the dormitory and torn to pieces as it was swept along. All of the tools and metal lockers full of things we use for camp were swept away. Thankfully the lawn mower was off for repairs. 

The tiles that had recently been placed on our terrace , a place to sit outside to eat or study, were rolled up and pushed off into the adjoining field, along with the picnic tables (heavy wooden tables). It looked like a frozen wave of cement tiles. Glass from broken windows accompanied stones thrown up from the creek bed and covered the field. It would be a year before we were able with several cleaning crews to clear up the field well enough to be played in without danger of being cut by glass or sharp stone. 

That summer of 2021 the youth Bible camp weeks had to adjust. The first planned week was only a week after the flood and had to find somewhere else to hold the week. The Benjamins also had to seek other accommodation until the camp could be cleaned up. But by August several crews had been to clean up well enough that the Teen camp could be held back at our normal Bible camp grounds. The kitchen and bathrooms had been flooded, but had been cleaned and disinfected. 

The summer of 2021 was to be a summer that would be different for Bible camp. The summer of 2020 had been a special year because of covid rules. This year was to have been more “back-to-normal”. The flood made it a memorable summer for everyone. In the villages and cities around camp there were people who lost their houses and lives. Some have, even now, not yet been able to recover from the loss. We are thankful for all the people around us that made this bad situation into a strong memory.

(Picture is after the flood and after some of the cleanup - the flood took all the tiles away and the cleanup crews came later and stacked them).

Whensday: The Flood Disaster of 1953

On February 1, 1953 - 70 years ago -  the Netherlands experienced a terrible natural disaster that shaped the country from then on. In the middle of the night, after severe storms, the water in the rivers and the seas rose so much that much of the southwestern coast of The Netherlands was flooded and more than 3000 people died. 

This is a tragedy at any time an in any place in the world, but at this moment - not long after the ravages of World War II - and in this seemingly modern country, it was devastating. In the country that for centuries had tamed the seas and learned how to live under sea level, nature had struck back and the country was brought to its knees. 

But that was the impetus for a renaissance of technology that has stretched Into the 21st century. These days, when a country wants to know how to deal with water, they come to The Netherlands and ask advice. It was Dutch engineers who were consulted after Katrina devastated Louisiana. Dutch engineers have been consulted and are at work in solving problems in Bangladesh. This tragedy 70 years ago ignited again the desire in the Dutch to conquer the water around them and turn it to their advantage. 

The Dutch rebuilt the villages, towns and cities along the coast, but not before they built an amazing wall to keep out the sea. This wall can open and close, leaving life open to the sea when it is safe, and closing off the waters when they become precipitously dangerous. Knowledge about dikes, canals, tides, beaches and more became common knowledge for the Dutch - and turned into shared knowledge for the world. 

Interestingly, much of that knowledge could not really help in 2021 when the rivers south of the country flooded in a short week, flooding some villages and towns in Belgium and the south of The Netherlands and threatening the cities further north. Questions arose about how things had been built as well as about how to protect against such natural disasters. The tenacity and adaptability of the Dutch have made them the eminent scholars and practitioners of works with water. 

In recent days we have seen a disaster that will resonate for years to come with people in Turkey and Syria. It reminds one of the quakes in Japan and Los Angeles where v=builders learned lessons. But the pain remains as a reminder to all who will listen.