In spite of the storms, no two papers have the same story on the front page today. So let’s hope the dikes don’t break, the Christian Democrats manage to heal their divisions and find a new leader, Dutch persona non grata Joran van der Sloot gets what he deserves and there are no rail accidents before the minister gets round to implementing safety measures. Oh and anyone for a bit of nostalgia. Read on.

Hell and high water in the Netherlands
Surprisingly the high water and stormy winds only made it onto the front page of a couple of papers. A photo in the AD shows an elderly man smoking a pipe looking down at the rising water outside his window near the river Maas, which is almost knee-high. There does not seem to be any panic yet.

Another resident says the water is already seeping through the walls and she has a vacuum pump ready to get rid of the excess. Meanwhile she is keeping an eye on water levels reported on teletext.

On the inside pages, the paper reports that in the north of the country pumps are working flat out to keep the polders (areas of reclaimed land) dry, but there is so much water it has nowhere to go. The situation will be critical today as storms are expected.

For steam engine enthusiasts it is quite a spectacle, because even the out of use steam pumps are back in action. In the town of Lemmer, the Woudagemaal pumping house - which is listed as a UNESCO heritage site - had 11,000 visitors on Wednesday. More on the Thursday's storms

Verhagen makes way for a new leader
Trouw has dedicated its front page to the announcement by Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Verhagen that he will not stand in a leadership battle for the Christian Democrats. The paper headlines with “Maxime Verhagen resigns himself to the inevitable”.

His announcement comes ahead of a special party conference at the end of the month, in which the Christian Democrats hope to turn the party’s luck around. Since joining the conservative VVD in Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s minority coalition government, supported by the anti-Islam Freedom Party, the Christian Democrats have seen their popularity – which had already been halved – plummet even further.

Chairperson Ruth Peetoom wants the party to reform before starting a leadership race. Maxime Verhagen admits that his image will not help the party – an NRC poll indicated that only three percent of party members would back his leadership. But who will lead the party? The paper suggests it will have to be someone who can bring the two sides back together again after deep divisions formed over the joining the current coalition.

Trouw’s supplement writes that Mr Verhagen is called a cheerful fellow by some, a rat by others, but he calls himself a political animal. Meanwhile the Christian Democrats will plod on without a clear leader.

Joran sent to Peru’s Siberia
Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, who is being held in Peru for the murder of Peruvian woman Stephany Flores, can expect a couple of unpleasant surprises, writes De Telegraaf. The prison authorities have requested a transfer from the notorious prison in Lima to the even more notorious Challapalca prison.

This prison lies at an altitude of 4,500 meters in an inhospitable region near the Bolivian border - Peru’s Siberia. There is a little light at the end of the tunnel. When his trial - which begins tomorrow - ends, he will return to Lima to sit out what is expected to be a long sentence.

In addition, the US authorities have officially filed for his extradition for the extortion of the parents of US teenager Natalee Holloway who disappeared over five and a half years ago. So once he has sat out what is expected to be a long sentence, he can look forward to a taste of American justice.

Minister critised for not implementing safety measures
De Volkskrant appears to have a scoop today, albeit one it has been sitting on for some months. The paper criticises the Environment and Infrastructure Minister Melanie van Schultz for failing to implement safety recommendations on the railways which were made a year ago.

In a report that came out last January, a Dutch safety board recommended taking “adequate action” together with the Dutch railway company NS and the company responsible for rail maintenance ProRail. To date it seems little has been done.

The report recommended having new safety measures in place by this month, but it is still unclear where European ERTMS safety systems are to be installed. And according to a spokesperson, they are still “waiting for an implementation plan and trials on the line between Amsterdam and Utrecht”.

However, the last major incident was in 1962 when a train went through a red danger signal, killing 93 people. In 2010, 172 trains ignored a red light. The paper writes everything was meant to be safe by 1972 - ten years after the accident.

Is a photo still “worth a thousand words”?
How much is a photo worth nowadays, asks nrc.next. We take so many, but at the same time we still long for that exclusive – or is it elusive – iconic image. The reporter of the piece visits an exhibition entitled “What Next? The Future of the Photography Museum” at the Amsterdam's Foam photography museum. It shows thousands of photos downloaded from the internet in a section of the exhibition called “24 hours in photos”: Thai weddings, drunken American students, baby faces covered in food are all up for grabs on the digital highway.

Digital photography has developed incredibly rapidly in recent years. But the popularity of the Hipstamatic App for the IPhone - which makes photos look like they have been taken by an antique camera - must say something about the emotional value pictures still hold.