In early 1953, the North Sea was experiencing uncommonly high tides for the season. On the evening of January 31, this high tide combined with a tidal surge and a fierce windstorm to inundate over 1,000 square miles of the Netherlands, and over 350 square miles along the coast of England. Within six hours, the flooding claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 people in the Netherlands (primarily in the provinces of Zeeland and South Holland), and over 500 British people drowned in the flood waters. The circumstances of the North Sea flood of 1953 shares a number of important similarities with the flooding of New Orleans in 2005 arising from Hurricane Katrina. My study will consist of a comparison of the North Sea disaster of 1953 and the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe of 2005. I will consider water-management efforts in the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the United States, and will analyze the events of each flood in light of these efforts. I will further investigate and compare flood responses in each country.

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