The stormy northeast wind has caused major flooding along the Markermeer. The campsite in Edam is largely empty on the very first day of the season. “If this is an April Fool’s Day joke, it’s a really bad joke,” says one camping guest who comes to assess the damage.
On the Hemmeland peninsula, visitors to the popular recreational area are surprised. Where normally cars are parked, it has become a large lake. The beaches and green areas where dogs are walked every day are also under water. In the midst of all that water, a car bobs with open windows. Fortunately, when the fire department checks, there is no one inside. A woman who went out to walk her dogs at six this morning tells of two coaches that managed to leave the flooded parking lot with great difficulty.
A man has never experienced anything like this in the 40 years that he has come to Hemmelland. “I’ve never seen this. Not even when we were young and it was all land here.” A few with the car still try against their better judgment to reach the parking lot through the water. A hopeless mission that the police and fire brigade quickly put an end to by barricading the access roads.
Injury
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much going on at the holiday resort in Uitdam. No flooding in the parking lot or near the houses. But then it turns out that there is damage and that the access road has been completely swept away. Man and power are trying to build an emergency road with trucks full of sand.
The Spijker couple is also amazed at the Paard van Marken lighthouse, where the wind is still pushing the water up. They are used to some wind and storms, but this one is still fierce. “As bad as now, is for the first time in 20 years,” says Lilianne Spijker. The jetty at the lighthouse has completely disappeared under the water and the shells. The beaches are under water and what remains is black from the peat remnants that the wind from the Markermeer has thrown down.
The camping guest in Edam cannot yet foresee the extent of the damage to his caravan. “But I can already see that it is very bad at the neighbor.”