High water in the Netherlands: Rivers were given space and are now occupying it

Wednesday 11.09am – Spijk

this? Gert van de Knaap, 78, shrugs his shoulders and points to the water crashing into the fence of the walking path, submerging a garden and extending as far as the eye can see. He says: “This is nothing.”

He had lived in Speke for fifty-five years and had never been afraid of the Rhine for a single day. It often flows into the Netherlands at Lobeth, but more accurately it occurs a few kilometers away at Speke. The school is closed, the bar is closed, and the store is gone. Only the village hall still exists. Every day, Van de Knaap walks around the village for three and a half to four kilometres. He can often walk outside the dam, but on Wednesday morning the Rhine flows inland at high speed.

Oh, he says, as the municipal inspector passes by. The water used to sometimes hit the dam here, which is no longer the case. But the further you followed the Rhine, the more dangerous the situation became on the docks.

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11:36 AM – Toll room

Calling themselves “water tourists”, they are a man and woman from Arnhem looking down from the dam. The “Europekade” is closed there: a traffic light warns of obstacles protruding above the water, quickly reaching below your knees. Then there is the swamp grass, then the wet grass, then the dry turf.

They came to Tolkammer because there you can see what the man calls “the impressive part.” The Rhine and Vaal are still one broad river, now entirely. In fact, the man says, he thinks it's not so bad. The woman points to a farther place: Germany. “It's completely flooded. This is different.”

She began by talking about Room for the Rivers, a government program that lives up to its name. It was rebuilt after the floods of 1995. By then, the river had burst its banks, and villages and city districts were threatened by a dam failure. To prevent this from happening in the future, river courses were widened, dams were moved, secondary canals were dug, and meadows and ponds were designated where water could flow; Not so much for emergencies, but to prevent them. She wonders: “What if this space is not granted?”

12.08 pm – Twindorp

Water flows on both sides of the narrow dam after Twindorp. Dining tables protrude around what is supposed to be an overwater recreational lake. A spokesman for the city of Deventer said on the radio that the water was continuing to rise “very quickly.” Moreover, the Rhine and Waal had divided, and of the trees that usually mark this separation, only the treetops were now visible.

12.54pm – Farm de Middleward, Bath

Miriam Kropp and her son Roland sail on a steel boat from their farm to the dam. Krupp and her husband run an organic oyster mushroom farm. This morning, the husband and son drove two tractor rigs to the dock, where assistant Lars was already waiting to take them to customers. In the six years he spent helping, the farm often became an island. But he had never seen the water rise as high as it did now.

The tractor's front wheels were no longer visible this morning. It was a quarter past nine. Then the water rose further, so Roiland now herded his mother to the dam, where Lars was ready with a box of mushrooms from another farmer.

Krupp has never felt concerned about water in the 30 years she has lived on the farm. She knew what she was getting into. But in recent years, they have become more concerned about climate change and extreme phenomena. Old-time farmers sometimes warn: If the meltwater causes the Lower Rhine to rise and the wind suddenly starts blowing very hard and freezes, you'll get strange things, drifting ice, you just have to see if the levees hold or not. A rowing boat is no longer enough. That's why we have beef in the fridge.

1.57pm – Duisburg

The water on one side of the lock at Doesburg, where the IJssel actually separated from the Rhine, is about the same level as the water on the other side. This, says a man from the nearby village of Drimpet, rarely happens. “The difference is usually about four or five metres.” He refers to the water: it is higher outside the dam than the gardens inside the dam.

2.39pm – Zutphen

Water flows over embankments along the N348 between Duisburg and Zutphen. IJssel looks more like a lake. But because it flows through floodplains and meadows, it does not flow over the pier at Zutphen. There's Linda and her husband. They live a few streets back by the river, and like many people, they went to watch. When I looked this morning, the water was lower. You can't walk there anymore.

People say this is amazing, she says. She thinks it's not so bad. The waterworks here are “very pretty.” The sidewalks are raised and modern and part of the outdoor walkway is designed to be flooded. Resident of one of the houses on the sidewalk: “We are better here than in Deventer.”

15.28 – Deventer

There is a traffic jam in front of the parking garage on the edge of central Deventer and people are walking on the bike path, which is very crowded. Day hikers look at the water as if it were a historical work of art and don't know what to think about it. The fact that people walk on the bike path is also due to the thick sandbags on part of the sidewalk. They are hard as rocks.

One restaurant fortified its entrance with sandbags and wooden partitions. The stone in the wall is a reminder of how things used to be. In 1926, the water was so high that perhaps only your head would stick out. In 1995 it reached your waist. And now?

Fina Eden sticks her head over the fence. The difference between the sidewalk and the water is estimated at about ten or twenty centimetres. In 2011, her children's friends paddled across the pier here. But that was before space was created for rivers, she says right away. Furthermore, the ditches were dug which now keep Deventer dry.

how long? The water is expected to reach its highest level on Thursday. Martin Loberding overlooks the IJssel from his apartment. It is believed that the Netherlands is well prepared. One question sometimes comes to mind: “When will the dams be high enough?”

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