How Dutch stormwater management could have mitigated damage from Hurricane Florence

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Bill Whitaker: The Dutch allocate more than a billion dollars a year to manage their flood infrastructure. Some of it is massive, like the Maeslantkering storm surge barrier.

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The gates guard one of the largest ports in the world and most of the Dutch population. They don't have hurricanes like we do, but ferocious storms with hurricane-force winds can blow in from the North Sea and push in huge storm surges. When that happens, the two arms seal off the Rhine River and Rotterdam. The gates took six years to build and cost $500 million.

Bill Whitaker: That's a big investment for something that you've only had to use once or twice since it was built.

Henk Ovink: $150 billion were lost in New Orleans. I don't think I need to say more. How many people were killed? Sandy, another storm, $70 billion. We don't have those damages.

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