Yesterday, the Netherlands was hit by a huge storm with severe rainfall. A weeralarm (weather alert) in the stage code oranje (code orange) was announced in the provinces Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland, Noord-Brabant and Utrecht. This means that there is a chance of extraordinary weather coming with a greater chance of schade en ongevallen (damage and accidents). This turned out to be more than true…

Some places experienced enormous amounts of regen (rain). For example, Kaatsheuvel and Alphen aan de Rijn both got around 150 mm. That is more than a gallon of water per square feet fallen within a day! In Alphen aan de Rijn, a dyke was about to break and flood an entire woonwijk (neighborhood). Fortunately, the bewoners (inhabitants) could help each other out and build up a wall of zandzakken (sandbags). That stopped the water.

Others just enjoyed the water, and floated on their luchtbedden (air mattresses) through the flooded streets.

Surfing through Amersfoort (Image by Mirjam van Putten at Twitter.com)

But it can also be quite dangerous. See below a video of Heemskerk and the wateroverlast (“water nuisance”) there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlnjsTq7dOY

There was even a town called Maarssen where 216 mm was recorded:

Map of “wateroverlast” in the Netherlands – 216 mm in Maarssen! (Image by Weerplaza.nl at Twitter.com)

To show how extreme these amounts are: Normally, in the entire month of July around 50-80 mm of rain falls. So within a day, the amount of two entire months has come down!

All this water left quite some damage. Many houses were flooded partly, which leaves waterschade (water damage) which is not easy to repair. Irreplaceable damage was also done in for example Bussum, where the gemeentehuis (town hall) was flooded and the archief (archive) and the kunstcollectie (art collection) were touched by the water. The total damage still has to be calculated, but already now, the woningsverzekeringen (house insurances) received 10 million euro of schadeclaims (damage claims).