With harsh western winds whipping over the artificial island of Neeltje Jans, created to facilitate the building of the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier, delegates said a massive upgrade of the Gulf Coast's hurricane defences was needed to prevent a repeat of the New Orleans disaster last year.

They visited the Dutch Delta works, a network of storm surge barriers built to withstand weather so ferocious the Netherlands, a quarter of which lies below sea level, would only see it once in 10,000 years.

"Here are the Delta works -- we'll be proposing a Gulf works," Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu told journalists.

"Because the Gulf Coast generates so much money I frankly don't think it is too much to ask for a few pennies to come back and help people keep their head above water."

She dismissed the 15.5 billion euro (18.7 billion dollar) price tag for the Delta works as "not that much money" in the light of the battering Louisiana took last year from a series of hurricanes, including category-four Katrina which broke through New Orleans' levees and inundated the city.

Katrina killed more than 1,300 people in the biggest natural disaster in US history, and New Orleans remains a shadow of the city it was before Katrina stormed ashore on August 29.

Led by Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, members of the delegation said the trip was about learning from Dutch dam expertise as well as reassuring traumatised Louisiana residents that the weather could indeed be beaten.

"The purpose is to raise awareness among people that such a system exists, that it is possible," Landrieu said.

Last year the United States spent 150 million dollars on Louisiana flood protection, only a fraction of the one billion euros the Dutch government pays for the annual upkeep of the dikes and dams.

The delegation also visited the last of the major Delta works projects to be completed in the mid-nineties, the Maeslandt barrier in the New Waterway protecting the port of Rotterdam, the second largest in the world.

Pounded by wind and rain, the US officials walked out to the twin rotating steel arms that close to form a W-shape in the river, blocking the water if the levels in Rotterdam get dangerously high.

Since it was completed the Maeslandt barrier has never had to close, although it is tested once a year.

A guide to the dam stressed that although it was excellent flood protection for the Netherlands, it would not be able to withstand a hurricane or a tsunami because they did not occur here.

Delegates on the three-day visit said the differences between the Netherlands and Louisiana were as informative as the similarities.

"We have to look at the concepts and the principles we could use, but we need to observe not only the similarities but also the differences," Henry "Junior" Rodriguez, the president of St. Bernard parish outside New Orleans, told AFP.

Senator David Vitter said the most important difference was in the attitude of his Dutch hosts toward dam construction, where it is seen as a national priority.

"The biggest difference and the heart of the challenge of the Louisiana delegation is that (in the Netherlands) these issues directly impact and threaten 70 percent of the population, back home our hurricane protection issues directly threaten and impact one percent of the population," he explained.

Landrieu said the United States had to lift its game.

"I think we have to raise our standards and our visions. It's got to be more than category three (hurricane protection), even category five eventually," she said.

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