Bart Hofmeester / Broadcasting Zeeland
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Newly discovered photos of the Watersnoods disaster provide a detailed picture of the damage caused by the water, according to the Watersnoodmuseum. The photos were taken by aerial photographer Bart Hofmeester just after the disaster in 1953, but have remained unseen until now.
The photos are particularly sharp and, according to Marc van Velzen of the museum in Ouwerkerk, such aerial photos have hardly been made. “Aerial photos are known, but not with so much detail. You can see exactly which buildings have been damaged. You see workers and people from the villages working to repair the damaged dikes,” he says. Broadcasting Zeeland.
Bart Hofmeester / Broadcasting Zeeland
Hofmeester died in 2001 and his photo collection with some 200,000 negatives was sold to photographer Roel Dijkstra “because he saw a good deal in it”. He accidentally came across 168 aerial photos of the disaster and doesn’t rule out the possibility of more.
According to Dijkstra, the negatives are generally in very good condition. “There was mold on some negatives. Those are thousands of white spots that you have to get rid of with Photoshop.”
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Bart Hofmeester / Broadcasting Zeeland
Ooltgensplaat (Goeree-Overflakkee) after the flood disaster -
Bart Hofmeester / Broadcasting Zeeland
Ouwerkerk after the flood disaster -
Bart Hofmeester / Broadcasting Zeeland
Steenbergen (Brabant) after the flood disaster
Van Velzen and Dijkstra made a book with the photos they found. They boarded the plane together to take new images in exactly the same places to show the extent of the destruction at the time. Because the location of some photos was not clear, the help of volunteers from the Watersnoodmuseum was called in.
Once the couple was on the plane, it was still a good search for the right location, according to Dijkstra. “Marc then shouted: ‘Here it is!’, while I was sitting with such an old photo on my lap and really didn’t see it. Then I just printed it. Afterwards it turned out to be correct in almost all cases,” he says .
Where the couple could not come by plane, a drone was used. The book is called Flood disaster and Delta Works from the clouds and will be on sale from February 1, when the disaster occurred 70 years ago is.
In five short flood newsreels, NOS looks back on the disaster this week:
Flood Journal #1: The sea has been defeated! Or not?
