The Dutch Fixed Their Flood in 44 Years. Louisiana Is Still Losing Land Every Hour

On the night of 31 January 1953 the North Sea came over the dikes of Zeeland and 1,836 people died in the Netherlands. In August 2005 Katrina broke more than fifty levees and floodwalls and flooded most of New Orleans. Both countries answered with walls. The Dutch kept building for forty-four years, and then they started making new land. Louisiana built its wall too, and in 2021 it held against Hurricane Ida. But the land behind it is still disappearing at about a football field every hundred minutes, and in 2025 the state cancelled the biggest project meant to build new land. This film goes through how both places ended up below the water, the two nights that changed them, the walls, the water boards and the river that feeds a delta. I thought this would be a story about engineering. It turned into a story about who decides, and who pays. If you live in Louisiana, or anywhere the water is moving in, tell me in the comments how it looks from where you are. And tell me which state you're from. I'll go looking for its pair. Chapters 0:00 Two floods, fifty years apart 1:56 Two countries below the water 4:41 Land that sinks on its own 10:53 Two nights: 1953 and 2005 18:01 Behind the wall 24:44 Where the mirror breaks 31:32 The question Sources for the numbers: Encyclopaedia Britannica and Rijkswaterstaat (North Sea flood of 1953, Delta Committee, Delta Works); Watersnoodmuseum; U.S. Geological Survey (Louisiana land loss 1932-2016); NASA Earth Observatory (Wax Lake and Atchafalaya deltas); U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (HSDRRS, IHNC Lake Borgne Surge Barrier); National Hurricane Center (Katrina 2005, Ida 2021); Turner and McClenachan, 2018 (canals and land loss); Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (Coastal Master Plan 2023); Restore the Mississippi River Delta and Mongabay (Mid-Barataria, 2025); PBS and Mother Jones (Isle de Jean Charles); PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency; Delta Programme (deltaprogramma.nl); Dutch Water Sector (Room for the River); Ecoshape (Sand Motor); EPA (Mississippi River basin). Map data: Natural Earth. Footage and photos: Pexels, Pixabay, NASA, NOAA, FEMA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nationaal Archief, Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, Openverse. Creative Commons images (creativecommons.org/licenses) were cropped, colour-adjusted and animated. Photographers: Quistnix (CC BY 2.5); Jeffrey Schwartz (CC BY 2.0); holga_new_orleans (CC BY 2.0); Bas (CC BY 2.0); Paul Arps from The Netherlands (CC BY 2.0); Hanno Lans (CC BY 2.0); Dassenman (CC BY 4.0); Klankbeeld (CC BY 4.0); Rijkswaterstaat - DWW (CC BY 3.0); L-BBE (CC BY 3.0); Cassie from Eugene, Oregon (CC BY 2.0); Louisiana Sea Grant (CC BY 2.0); Rijkswaterstaat (CC BY 3.0); Team New Orleans, US Army Corps of Engineers (CC BY 2.0); Nicolas Henderson (CC BY 2.0); George Bannister (CC BY 2.0); Infrogmation of New Orleans (CC BY 2.5); Vladimír Šiman (CC BY 3.0); Jh12 (CC BY 2.5); Infrogmation (CC BY 2.5); Olivier Cleynen (CC BY 4.0); The National Guard (CC BY 2.0); Green Fire Productions (CC BY 2.0); Editor B (CC BY 2.0); nola.agent (CC BY 2.0); HikaruImai (CC BY 4.0); China Crisis (CC BY 2.5); Ximonic (Simo Räsänen) (CC BY 3.0); Gary Warren (CC BY 3.0); Alex Castro (CC BY 2.0); xiquinhosilva (CC BY 2.0); Aaron Volkening (CC BY 4.0); Reading Tom (CC BY 2.0); Paul Lowry (CC BY 4.0); Jeff Marks (CC BY 2.0); Jeremy Thompson (CC BY 4.0); Thibodaux (CC BY 2.0); Aaron Manning (CC BY 3.0); JasonParis (CC BY 2.0); Derek Bridges (CC BY 2.0); T.Tseng (CC BY 2.0); Dr. Warner (CC BY 2.0); Britt Reints (CC BY 2.0); antoineraemaekers (CC BY 3.0). Music: YouTube Audio Library (Brian Bolger, Asher Fulero, Chris Haugen, The Soundlings, Nat Keefe). #Louisiana #Netherlands #Katrina