During the middle ages the low lying coastal areas of what was then Holland was on a number of occasions subjected to severe flooding, one such flood caused much of the area to be flooded for the majority of the 15th century.
On the 17th of November in the year 1421 a massive storm in the North Sea battered the coastline of Europe. Over 10,000 people lost their lives when severe flooding occurred in what is now the Netherlands. The coastal areas of the Netherlands are very low lying and had been prone to flooding many times before. The coastal area near to the North Sea was at that time heavily populated despite this knowledge of it being in a high risk flood zone.
Several small villages and cities had been built up in the region, dikes were built to protect the land from the sea but flooding caused fatalities in the 13th and 14th centuries when storms struck in 1287, 1338, 1374, 1394 and 1396. each time after a flood the residents of this region fixed the damaged dikes, moved back into their homes and continued on their lives as before.
At the start of the 15th century a flood on St. Elisabeth’s Day in 1404 (named after a Hungarian saint’s feast day, November 19) an event in which thousands perished. Surviving residents still lived in the area. 17 years later almost to the day another storm struck, this one caused hundreds of breaches in the defensive dikes. One city was destroyed, as were another 20 villages wiped off the map. Much of the area was flooded for decades after this storm and the dikes were not fully repaired and rebuilt until 1500, some of the land was as a result of this storm permanently separated from the mainland.
Welcome to Authspot, the spot for creative writing.
Read some stories and poems, and be sure to subscribe to our feed!
