In July of last year, the Meuse River, which had grown from several consecutive days of rain, overflowed the embankment, and the Belgian city of Liège became its victim.
Water the color of old meat sauce rushed through the streets of the city, leaving citizens adrift in canoes as their homes disappeared around them.
In the city and its province, more than 20 people died, and one man drowned in his own basement.
And this corner of Eastern Belgium was not alone in that.
In nearby Germany, about 200 people disappeared, and journalists described this flood as an event that happens once in a hundred years.
The financial consequences of the disaster were also shocking.
Near Liège, a chocolate factory suffered damage worth around 12 million euros.
And yet, while the disaster was spreading, one corner of Northern Europe was much less affected.
In the Netherlands, the summer floods were also described as the worst in the last hundred years, the material damage was enormous, but the country survived the floods without a single fatality.
There are many reasons for this: quick evacuations, solid embankments and good communication between them.
But what these various flood defenses rely on is an institution: so-called "water boards" have protected this flooded land for nearly a millennium.
It is worth trying to understand these connections, because of the way they combine local democracy, direct taxation and crystal clear transparency while placing water at the very core of the Dutch way of life.
And the Netherlands is not alone in this.
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From the Ethiopian highlands to communities along the Danube, water management around the world is borrowing aspects of the Dutch model for their own purposes, improving the lives of thousands of people along the way.
Other regions could soon join them, now that countries around the world are facing increased flooding that comes with climate change.
When Piet-Hein Davervelt goes to work every morning, among the churches and cobblestones of the Dutch city of Delft, he feels that history beside him greets him in a calm attitude.
"You just have to be aware that you're next in line," he says.
"You stand on the shoulders of many people from the past."
With Oude Delft number 167, it's easy to see what he means.
If you stop at this address and look up, you will see the coat of arms, decorative windows, a solemn Gothic facade completed in 1505.
This is urban geminlandshuis, which translates as the headquarters of the local water board, where Davervelt works as president - illite dike warden, as his title is known.
This elegant building became Delft's geminlandshuis 1645, and even that is fairly new to the water board world.
Known in Dutch as water Authority or hoogheemraadschap, some of them have their roots in the 12th century.
"Farmers especially had to band together to protect the land," explains Tracy Metz, co-author of Sweet and Salty: Water and the Dutch.
"Of course, any chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so there was a lot of pressure in the community for everyone to do their part to keep their farmland dry."
Even today, it still makes sense in a country where nearly a third of the land and half of the homes are below sea level.
Dutch polders (low fields "taken over" by the sea) and dikes must be collectively maintained.
This natural vulnerability - Holland ("Holland") literally means "low country" - helps to explain the increasing power of the water board.
By the time Vermeer and Rembrandt dipped their brushes in paint in the mid-17th century, committees could demand payment of their own taxes and fine polluters.
In the offices of the Rhineland Water Board in Leiden, you can still find a two-meter-long bar with a stamp on the top - which was once used to bring people into line.
Despite this, says Metz, waterschaps were practically representative bodies.
Although they were not democratic in today's sense, they were governed within a community, where farmers or citizens shaped their local organization. Metz argues that the committees formed the basis of future Dutch democracy.
Water boards have clearly evolved from those long-gone days of merchant guilds and pleated collars.
Where once there were 3.500, now there are only 21, and they are represented by a national association.
But although their number has been reduced, their role has been expanded: in addition to organizing and maintaining flood defenses, they are also in charge of controlling the quality of water, rivers and maintaining canals and cleaning sewers.
And their unique history can still be recognized in contemporary Dutch life.
In addition to the beautiful examples of brick and stone, this can clearly be seen in the language as well.
Expression dike warden, for example, has distinctly aristocratic overtones - literally meaning "count of the embankment", which serves as a striking reminder of the Netherlands' deep feudal past.
During this time, Dutch politicians use the verb polder to describe the spirit of cooperation that is an integral part of the water board's work.
The history of the water board also has practical consequences for the present moment.
Like their medieval ancestors, for example, water boards still raise their own funds today.
Households generally pay two types of taxes: to the municipality and to the water board.
And, as Emily Sturm argues, this independence comes with an obvious financial advantage.
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In contrast to other countries, where the water industry struggles for funds by pressing together with education or housing, the Dutch model "guarantees" that the coffers are always full, explains Sturm, program manager at Blue Deal, a body that promotes Dutch expertise in water management abroad.
This is also reflected in the statistics: water boards generate up to 95 percent of their budgets from their own taxes.
Contrast that with the US state of Texas, where the US Department of Housing and Urban Development recently announced that Houston and its county would not receive new funding for flood relief - despite requesting $1,3 billion for it.
At the same time, waterschaps continue the long tradition of open and elected government.
Most board positions are elected directly by citizens, although a few positions continue to be awarded to corporate interests in industry, agriculture, and the environment.
The average Dutchman doesn't care much about his local board: Rens Huisman of the Zuiderzeeland water board compares them to football referees: you ignore them when they're doing well.
Even so, this deep-rooted localism is very helpful.
First, says Davervelt, democracy encourages transparent investment and oversight.
Secondly, the boards are full of experts, chosen so that they understand their own local issues.
This regionalism came to the fore this summer, when the committees applied various tactics in the fight against floods.
In Rivierenland, which is criss-crossed by waterways, staff rushed to test the strength of local dikes.
In Limburg, sandwiched between Belgium and Germany, the board proposed a "Euroregional approach" that would cover all three countries.
South of Addis Ababa, the Awash River meanders sluggishly for 1.200 kilometers through central Ethiopia, past wild landscapes and wheat fields, and boys herding goats in the sun.
The terrain here is uneven: many mountains near the river are more than 2.000 meters high.
At night, groups of baboons sleep on the leaves of palm trees to hide from predators.
In other words, this place seems like it couldn't be further from the Dutch Lowlands.
Then again, if you know what to look for, you can find traces of the Netherlands everywhere.
This is true of the dams and levees along the Avash, as well as the way the waterways are managed, from taxation to representation.
Tegenu Zerfu, an Ethiopian water expert, claims that this is not at all surprising.
"Future-proofing," he says, "can be taken from the polder model."
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Representatives of the Dutch water industry have been bringing knowledge to distant countries for years, building relationships with countries from Peru to Vietnam.
And the Ethiopian highlands are not unique in this sense either.
In total, Dutch Blue Deal operates in 14 countries, while individual water boards also have their own partnerships, which insiders see as a natural continuation of the tradition of the so-called polder.
Joe Karis, Huisman's colleague at the Zuiderzeeland Water Board and a specialist on Ethiopian waterways, says that support for the neighboring water board and the distant Avash River are actually two sides of the same coin.
This support can also be described as an exchange, he adds, because lower-income countries can also teach Dutch water veterans a few things.
Sturm came to a similar conclusion.
"The need for this program," he explains, "stemmed from the understanding that in order to adapt to climate change, we need to learn from each other around the world."
As this last comment suggests, the Dutch are careful never to export their methods wholesale, and try to bring some valid lessons home.
But although it is unlikely that it will in the near future geminlandshuis from Addis Ababa, water boards have left an indelible mark on Ethiopia.
This is evident, for example, in how Zerfu and his colleagues reformed taxation along the Avash.
Until the Dutch came along a few years ago, large industrial concerns had very little initiative to save water, a serious challenge in a country where only 42 percent of people have access to a potable water supply.
But things are different now: poor farmers along the Avash are exempted from paying water taxes, while larger users are asked to pay their share.
Even better, Zerfu says, just like the Dutch model, this system is self-financing - crucial in a country plagued by war, human rights abuses and poverty (a quarter of the population lived below the poverty line in 2016).
You can also see echoes of the Dutch systems in the way Ethiopia approaches representation.
There is nothing like elected water boards along the Avash: democracy in this country is too fragile for that.
But Dutch and local officials encourage small farmers to join local water user associations, which gives them collective power in negotiations with the state and industries.
Low-key schemes like this, Huisman argues, are typical of the way the Dutch work abroad.
"You have to take the principles from our governance model - and change them when you apply them to other countries."
The same applies to countries closer to the Netherlands. Mirela Čukur is the head of economic affairs at the Romanian National Water Authority.
Like Tegen Zeff, she also became convinced of the influence of the Dutch model in her homeland, especially when it comes to good governance.
Historically, Romania's water tax spending has lacked transparency, Čukur explains.
Borrowing an idea from the Netherlands, Čukur developed an "economic analysis model" to understand exactly what money is needed for, from flood defenses to beach maintenance.
In addition to being more transparent, this approach leads Romania towards the "cost recovery" model that has been so successful in the Netherlands.
As in Ethiopia, it should be noted, the comparisons are not precise.
Although Romania already has 11 regional water authorities, for example, their budgets are managed centrally from Bucharest.
Despite this, Čukur is convinced that it is necessary to do it according to the Dutch model.
She says she hopes that "we are able to approach their model of success".
When the rains arrived, with 2,5 centimeters per hour at their peak, the torrent was unstoppable.
People had to evacuate 900 villages, and the flood came so fast that soldiers had to rescue trapped villagers in rickety wooden boats, leading elderly women through the mud.
These could have been floods in Germany or Belgium: they happened this summer, just a few weeks after Liège and its neighbors were ravaged, and more than 100 people died here as well.
But actually, this latest disaster happened on the other side of the world from the Netherlands, in the central Indian state of Maharashtra.
These two disasters, twins in cause, consequences and time sequence of events, speak in a poignant way about the threat of floods in the age of climate crisis.
Across vast swathes of Western Europe, scientists have found that climate change is increasing the amount of rain that falls on any given day by up to 19 percent.
Not surprisingly, this drastically increases the risk of flooding.
Researchers have suggested that climate change has made recent floods in Germany nine times more likely.
Scientists have reached similar conclusions about the subcontinent, noting that climate change is contributing to 75 percent of India's districts being at risk of catastrophic weather events such as floods.
And not only in these two parts of the world. Parts of South Dakota, Nebraska and New Mexico could experience a fivefold increase in flood exposure by 2100.
In other words, the problems that recently befell Belgium and India are becoming truly global threats.
This naturally raises the question: what to do? Of course, the ultimate answer is staggeringly complex and encompasses everything from green energy to better planning laws.
But could the Dutch model of water management - with its pillars of independence, transparency, collaboration and adaptability to local conditions - offer any broader lessons? Experts believe that it would.
"It could work very well," says Tracy Metz, "if these organizations had enough autonomy and influence to make what they decide come true."
Sturm agrees with that. Water, she points out, will play a "huge role" in the world of tomorrow.
"And that's why the need for the existence of water authorities, the right knowledge, the right management of actors is so important."
And there are signs that even countries with no direct connection to the Blue Deal in the broader sense are starting to think like the Dutch.
In the US state of Virginia, for example, distressed cities across the state are collaborating to develop a unified coastal master plan, encouraging the government to launch a larger financial initiative after crisis situations.
On the other side of the country, meanwhile, the California State Water Resources Control Board is considering giving itself more power, potentially requiring the people who control rivers and springs to share their bounty with the community.
If they can do it without reaching for a six-foot branding iron, so much the better.
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