Computer glitch nearly drowns Amsterdam, utility worker saves the day

While human error is often the hallmark of catastrophic accidents, a Dutch utility worker has proven that lack of human oversight can be equally calamitous.

The iconic city center of Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, has had a brush with the so-called “Kokura’s luck,” as tens of thousands of city residents were unaware that their homes and city were nearly flooded.

According to reports from the Dutch media, billions of liters of North Sea water were rushing towards Amsterdam in early November last year, ballooning canal water levels by 20 centimeters (seven inches) and posing a serious risk to the city itself.

The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Rijkswaterstaat, reported that as the storm Ciarán was battering the North Holland coast, high wind speeds started to push seawater inland. As a third of the Netherlands lies below sea level, its inland cities are protected by a vast and complex network of canals and floodgates.

Around 4 a.m. on November 2nd, an unknown computer glitch switched the sluice gates from automatic to manual controls, meaning that nothing stood between the water rushing into the North Sea Canal and the country’s capital.

As controllers were seated 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the gates, operators were unaware they weren’t working properly.

Utility workers noted something fishy only two hours later after an employee of the Amstel Gooi en Vechtstreek water board noted that the extremely high water level in the canal could not have been caused by rainfall and wind alone.

Prompted by the employee, colleagues manually inspected the gates, only to find they were wide open, allowing the sea to reclaim the land it had once lost to the Dutch.

Almost four hours after the initial water rise, when the canal's water level was already 32 centimeters (nearly 13 inches) above normal, authorities manually closed the fourteen gates protecting Amsterdam from the sea.

The incident prompted Rijkswaterstaat to move the sluice operation complex closer to the gates so that employees could inspect them visually. The authorities have also placed additional personnel to monitor the channel 24/7 and installed an acoustic signal to alert the staff of any irregular water level rises.