At Christmas 1993, then 29-year-old Liesbeth van Dijk wasbuilding a house in Steyl, right on the Meuse river. Her workplace was the pharmacy of the St.-Maartens Gasthuis in Venlo, just as close to the Maas. So when the water came that winter, it was not just exciting for her - it was doubly exciting.
By: Frans Pollux
NO PARKET FLOOR
"Look," Liesbeth points towards the south. She is standing on a nursing tower of VieCuri, the Venlo hospital that was still called St.-Maartens Gasthuis in the 1990s. "Behind it I lived," she says In the distance looms the Maasveld neighbourhood, the part of Steyl where Liesbeth was building a house in 1993. Now protected by dykes, in 1993 it was not. So the building site flooded.
"Annoying," admits Liesbeth, "but nothing more. The neighbours were a bit further along, they really suffered damage. Above all, we were taught a lesson: don't lay parquet floors and elevate the whole house just a bit higher. The municipality didn't like it, but when the Meuse flooded again in 1995, I was very happy that we had stuck to our guns."
HEERLY SIMPLE
Liesbeth's employer, the hospital, had also learned lessons. In 1995, for instance, there was a script ready to go, whereas in 1993 everything was still new. "That improvisation did create a strong sense of belonging. As employees, we knew there was a 'crisis meeting' every day at noon, chaired by the director. This was summarised afterwards on an A4 sheet. And then everyone carried out what was agreed. Beautifully simple. Now you have crisis teams and crisis managers and e-mails and apps and phone calls - but whether that makes it more effective?"
PUTDEKS
By Christmas 1993, St.-Maartens Gasthuis was an island. The Meuse had wriggled around the 10-year-old building, but patients were keeping dry. "We then moved all the stuff in the pharmacy upstairs in the basement. And we were afraid that the heating would fail, which eventually didn't happen. That was pretty much it. Yes, and I also stayed in the hospital during my shift. Once you got there, that was the best option. Getting there had become complicated."
Because the roads around the hospital were also flooded. Daredevils who tried "got manhole covers against their gearboxes or bumped into edges or thresholds," Liesbeth recalls stories from colleagues. Parking in the nearby auction grounds and then having one of the ready army trucks take you to the hospital emergency room was the safest option. New patients could go to the hospital in Venray.
HIGH VISIT
In 1995, the emergency dykes held back a lot of water. Yet patients were evacuated just then. As a precaution, incubator babies and people in intensive care. Liesbeth remembers little of this. She does remember that in '95, there were high-ranking visitors at the door. "Our house had just been finished, we had only just moved in. And suddenly the bell rang: Mrs Visschers, the wife of the then mayor of Tegelen. With her husband's urgent advice to evacuate. 'You're young,' she said, 'you have a whole life ahead of you.' Well meant, but I laughed very hard and told her I had four swimming diplomas. No, I was never afraid of the Meuse. It was spooky now and then - at night that roaring sound of the diesel engines of cargo ships, a piercing sound that you could hear from far away. But other than that, high tides mostly caused a lot of hassle, and of course hefty damage for some, but no real danger."
By the way, was it smart to build a house so close to a river? Liesbeth says she had factored in the risk. "It comes with the territory. In 1984, the Meuse had been very high before, so it wasn't like we had forgotten about it. When the hospital on the Meuse was built, old people said they used to go skating there all the time, that's how low that place was."
WILDVREEMDENFROM THE RANDSTAD
Meanwhile, Liesbeth lives in Sevenum, at a safe distance from the Meuse. But close to the Molenbeek, "which is also high sometimes." Sometimes she misses the river; she loved living there. She regrets having very little footage of the floods - these were the years before mobile phones. About the footage: a 1995 newspaper reported that the nursing tower would be "monitored" during the expected high water because in 1993, "wild-eyed people from the Randstad had forced their way into the tower to take pictures of the flood from the top floor The hospital director spoke outrageously at the time. "I am not from the Randstad," laughs Liesbeth, "but I must confess that I did climb up for a while in 1993. With a camera, yes. I was standing exactly where we are now. And all around us was water."
MUSICAL
How that must have felt can be experienced this summer. In open-air theatre De Doolhof in Tegelen, Toneelgroep Maastricht will then perform the spectacle musical Het was Zondag in het Zuiden. A story based on the floods in the 1990s, with music by Rowwen Hèze. "Wonderful idea," says Liesbeth, "and I think all those wild strangers from the Randstad are now very welcome."