From Jeff Masters' blog, describing the Dutch response to a powerful North Sea storm:
While today's storm did not approach the 1953 storm in severity, it did bring the highest storm surge seen in the past 20 years to the North Sea. The massive flood gates that protect the Dutch port of Rotterdam were closed for the first time since they were constructed in the 1990s. From early media accounts, the gates did their job admirably, protecting the Netherlands from inundation. Water levels reached 3.16 meters above mean sea level in the southern Netherlands, and 3.40 meters above sea level in the northern Netherlands, with no flooding reported.
If only we'd built something similar to protect New Orleans...
P.S.: For more info on the Dutch gated structure known as the Maeslantkering, see here.
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Well, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a series of similar sounding structures in the early and mid-1970's. They were rejcetd as too costly and too environmentally damaging. Instead we got some levee changes - poorly maintianed by the locals, and MRGO which serves as a storm surge funnel into the heart of the city (while carrying negligable shipping traffic). As an expatriate Louisiana boy, I have mixed feelings about that - New Orleans is still very much on life support, and we're not at all sure she'll live. Frankly, given all the environmental issues Louisiana deals with - some of which srate wya upstream in the Mississippi water shed, I think the Nation owes us a bit more then flood gates. But I digress. . . .
Soon enough we'll need one of those for New York Bay and Boston Harbor.