NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana's governor and U.S. senators and more than 40 government, business and education leaders left Monday for the Netherlands to study the flood control systems protecting a nation much farther below sea-level than New Orleans.

A second group, largely from southwestern Louisiana and east Texas, will make a similar trip in March, said U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who is organizing both trips. "If I have to do a third, I will."

Landrieu said she met with leaders from Jefferson County, Texas, while she was in Louisiana over the weekend. "You don't hear much about the Beaumont area," she said. But, she said, "they're just devastated. They're very anxious to see a system that may work for us."

After Hurricane Katrina broke floodgates and levees, flooding most of New Orleans and all of neighboring St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, Landrieu said, The Netherlands' ambassador told her about the flood of 1953, when 1,800 people died. The number would have been far higher without the Army helicopters that bolstered the rescue effort by Holland's single helicopter, he told her.

"He said, `Why don't you all come over and see what we've done since then?'" Landrieu recounted.

Hurricane Katrina's death toll so far is 1,326 in five states, including 1,077 in Louisiana.

Holland recently completed a 50-year program to build dams, sea walls, and surge barriers designed to protect the south of the country against almost any storm. It includes the twin rotating gates that can seal the mouth of Rotterdam's harbor against a storm surge, and the set of 62 big gates that can close off the Oosterschelde estuary in Zeeland.

The group's itinerary includes those and the Delft hydraulics laboratory, where scaled-down tsunamis can be pitted against model floodwalls, said Landrieu's press secretary, Adam Sharp.

The program will start Tuesday afternoon in The Hague with a seminar about Dutch water policy.

In addition to Blanco, Landrieu, U.S. Sen. David Vitter and U.S. Rep. Bill Jefferson, the party includes the state's transportation secretary, officials from the flooded parishes, the chairman of Pan American Life Insurance and a Shell Exploration and Production Co. vice president.

Source: Associated Press