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A TALE OF TWO CITIES |
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by Charles Carreon Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 10:29 pm In February 1953, 500,000 acres in Holland were flooded when high tides and gale-force winds overwhelmed dikes in the southwest provinces. It was a heavy blow to a country just recovering from a world war. During the flood, a doughty Dutch barge captain plugged a break in a levee by piloting his vessel into the breach, saving the citizens of Rotterdam from mass drowning in their beds. Over 1,800 people and 47,000 cattle died, and 3,000 homes and 300 farms were destroyed. The 1953 floods in Holland and the drowning of New Orleans are similar in various ways. In both cases, the effort to protect land with levees and dikes was incomplete, and in some ways made matters worse. Both countries had neglected infrastructure repairs due to being involved in a war. Many scholars using computer models predicted a catastrophic flood as a near-certainty in New Orleans. In Holland, just a few days before the flood, the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management had published a proposal to dam all tidal inlets and estuaries in some of the very provinces most ravaged by the floodwaters. After the flood, the Dutch followed the Ministry’s recommendations, and developed a formidable system on which Holland now spends $500 Million per year to protect their country from the sea. Amsterdam natives often remind visitors that, but for the levees and pumps, their charming city of canals and bridges would be entirely underwater. Since plans for the future New Orleans are currently uncertain, we must wait to see if the two cities will continue to mirror each other in recovery as they have in calamity. [1] _______________ American-Buddha Librarian Comment: [1] Charles, you miss the point here, which is that in the case of New Orleans, the Devil was driving the barge into the floodwall to CAUSE the flooding, not prevent it. New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is full of ironic counter-point art painted by the Devil. And those black people thought they knew how to do witchcraft -- HA HA HA HA HA! The white Illuminati will show you witchcraft, you black-skinned fools.
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