Venice 'under water' after worst floods for 20 years

[Antaletriangle]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-20-years.html
Venice has been hit by the worst flooding in more than 20 years, as high winds and days of heavy rain pushed the level of the city’s lagoon to more than five feet above its average height.
By Nick Squires in Rome
Last Updated: 6:57PM GMT 01 Dec 2008

More than 95 per cent of the historic city centre, including St Mark’s Square, was under water as the city was swamped by the most severe flood since 1986.

Tourists and residents were stranded in hotels and houses as the duckboards and pontoons which normally cope with Venice's high tides simply floated away.

Elderly people had to be carried to safety and shops and homes had to use pumps to bail out the water.

Venice’s mayor, Massimo Cacciari, advised tourists hoping to visit the city to “think again”.

The situation was worsened by a transport strike affecting Venice’s famous vaporetto ferries.

The governor of Veneto province, of which Venice is a part, criticised transport workers for choosing such a bad time to strike.

“I’d like to give them a medal for their sense of responsibility,” Giancarlo Galan said with heavy sarcasm.

Venice’s lagoon often rises to 40 inches above its normal level during 'acqua alta’ or high tides, particularly in autumn and winter.

But anything above 50 inches risks flooding the city and causing chaos for its 60,000 permanent residents and the tens of thousands of tourists who descend on it each day.

The worst flood in modern times was in 1966, when the lagoon rose more than six feet and caused widespread damage.

Experts say the severity and frequency of floods is becoming worse due to silt deposits raising the floor of the lagoon and a rise in sea levels caused by global warming.

After years of argument and indecision, Venice has started building a system of moveable barriers to control the inflow of water from the Adriatic Sea, but it is not expected to be finished until 2012.

Bad weather has affected much of Italy in recent days, with snow storms in the north, heavy rain in Umbria and Tuscany and thunder storms over Rome and as far south as Sicily.

[Kimmie]

Thanks for Posting. I've always felt a connection to Venice, yet since I have never had the change to be their in person (during this incarnation-anyways!) I've adored the architecture in books and on Travel shows.

Again, thanks for Posting,
Much Love Kimmie

[Antaletriangle]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/wo...html?ref=world
Published: December 2, 2008

Yeah i'd like to visit florence also kimmie.
Floodwaters in Venice Begin to Recede

ROME — Floodwaters in Venice began to subside on Tuesday after reaching their highest point in 22 years, forcing residents and tourists alike to stay inside or venture out with hip-waders.

Venice Under Water On Tuesday morning, waters had dropped to 39 inches, down from a high of 61 inches on Monday, the fourth highest flood level in contemporary history, Venice’s Tide Center said.

“We sent out another warning about very high tides this morning,” said Leonardo Cossutta, who runs the center’s control room. He said transportation was returning to normal, although some canal ferries were forced to take alternative routes because they couldn’t fit under the bridges. A transport union called off a planned strike because of the floods.

This week’s flooding reached the highest levels since 1986 but were still below the record of 76 inches reached in 1966. Venice sets the flood level at 40 inches.

Arriving swiftly early Monday morning, the waters flooded into shops and homes. They engulfed the café tables in St. Mark’s Square and forced its famous pigeons to find higher ground. In news photos, people waded through the streets in high boots.

Because levels rose so quickly, the city was unable to erect the wooden platforms it uses to help pedestrians traverse the high waters. On Monday, the city sounded alarms, urging residents to stay indoors.

Venice routinely floods several times a year, but in recent years the phenomenon has worsened. Experts say global warming is the main culprit. The flooding reopened a running debate on the “Moses” project, a controversial system of offshore dams designed to prevent such flooding.

Work began on the $5.5 billion project five years ago and is expected to be completed around 2011. Had the dam system been in place, “it would have prevented what happened yesterday and also today,” said Flavia Faccioli, a spokeswoman for the state consortium which is building the dams.

Some environmental groups oppose the project, calling instead for reduced carbon emissions. “We’ve seen for a long time that global warming presents problems for a city like Venice,” said Michele Bertucco, the president of the Veneto branch of Legambiente. The mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, said the project was moving forward, The Associated Press reported.

[Antaletriangle]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...g-1048243.html

Venice suffers second day of flooding
By Peter Popham in Rome
Tuesday, 2 December 2008



Sea water powered by a fierce scirocco wind laid siege to Venice for a second day today, flooding basements, destroying domestic appliances and shopkeepers' merchandise and bringing the city to a halt.




Yesterday's flood, which reached 1.56 metres, was the highest in 22 years. Today the Piazza San Marco and much of the rest of the city were still under water, and sales of anglers' waders and wellingtons continued to boom.

The city fire brigade answered 135 emergency call-outs to help residents empty flooded cellars, to pump out stairwells and deal with chimney pots threatened by the strong wind. Today the city's government appealed to the central government for financial help to get through the crisis.

The city awoke on yesterday with the “acqua alta” (high water) alarm ringing throughout the city but winds were light and the flood was expected to be no higher than those which have struck the city and inundated its centre no less than eight times since 28 October. But in defiance of the forecasts the wind suddenly strengthened, the water poured in and by 10.45 had reached the 1.56 metre mark.

Venetians, long used to the phenomenon, rushed down to their basements to remove valuables at risk. Lisa di Cataldo, a pensioner, born and raised in Venice who lives in the Castello section, said, “The water came up at great speed as I was watching, it poured into the cellar and came within 20 centimetres of knocking out our new boiler. It came in very fast because the scirocco wind was so strong. The person who lives opposite had her fridge and television destroyed by the water.

“Everybody in the calle (lane) was busy cleaning up as the level began to drop, you have to go at it quickly because the salt water is so destructive. At the end of the calle there was a shop run by Indians who had all their merchandise out on the street. Not being Venetians clearly they were not prepared for the force of the water. I went to buy bread but the baker said he had been unable to bake because the water had got into his oven.”

Aggravating the situation was a strike by the crews of the vaporetti, the public ferries that keep the city moving. “The strike made things worse,” commented Giorgio Candus, an architect who lives five minutes from Piazza San Marco. “People who had intended to leave couldn't get away.”

If the plan to save the city from high water by means of flood gates, known as the Moses project, had been implemented according to schedule, this week's floods would never have happened, according to Consorzio Venezia Nuova, the consortium that is building the gates: the original date for finishing the multi-billion euro project was 2007. But due to delays in government finance the completion date recently slipped further, from 2012 to 2014.

Lisa di Cataldo commented, “Everyone is complaining because the government has spent so much money on Moses and they ought to have it finished by now.”

Mr Candus, whose home was unaffected, was phlegmatic about the flood. “The media exaggerated the whole thing,” he said. “They called it a dramatic event, but there was nothing dramatic about it: the water just comes up then it goes down, that's all.”

[Dantheman62]

Ha my brother was just there two weeks ago!, I guess he left in plenty time to miss the floods tho, wow.