The flood of the year 1906
On March 12, 1906, Zeeland and Flanders were hit by a heavy storm surge. There were no casualties, but the damage was enormous. A report from Nieuw Namen (Zeeuws-Vlaanderen) from that time: “The storm and especially the high water caused a lot of damage in the port on Monday afternoon: about twenty vessels were badly damaged. The water had risen almost to the top of the dike, so that the waves crashed over it continuously. ”
The flooding took place during the day and people and livestock were able to escape from the flooded polders in time. Many dikes could not withstand the swirling water masses and the dikes that held up were badly damaged. They worked hard to prevent the flooding from spreading to the polders behind. After this storm surge, the dikes were provided with walls on top of the dike, the so-called muralt walls. Between 1906 and 1935, 120 kilometers, which was about a third of all Zeeland outer dikes at that time, was provided with this cheap dike raising. But when the water rose in 1953, the embankments proved inadequate. The walls were therefore demolished after 1953.
