By Meghna Anand Y11
Starting on Tuesday the 12th of November and lasting almost a week, the flooding in Venice has been the second-worst in the city’s history, second only to the 1966 flooding by 6.35 centimeters. The water level peaked on Tuesday at 1.87 meters, and exceeded 1.5 meters two more times that week. As one LGB student so eloquently put it, “That’s pretty wack, man; big oof.”
A siren went off to alert citizens when the high tides began and a state of emergency was declared by the authorities. Preschools and many tourist sites were closed from Tuesday to the following Monday. The crypt beneath St. Mark’s Basilica was flooded for the second time ever, and the church was flooded for the sixth time in history. It closed to tourists. The La Fenice Opera House cancelled concerts on Wednesday and Thursday night after Tuesday’s flooding. Concerned citizens donned rubber boots and tried to protect manuscripts at Venice’s Music Conservatory. Two hundred and eighty civil protection volunteers assisted around the city. Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice, estimates that the cost of the flooding will amount to hundreds of millions of euros. Two people have died from flood-related incidents: one was electrocuted installing a water pump, and another died in his home.
The flooding has reignited the debate concerning the controversial “Mose Project,” a project started in the 1980’s meant to stop floods from being so destructive. It’s a set of underwater barriers that still don’t work (they were supposed to be operational by 2011) despite the fact that MOSE has cost Venician taxpayers over 5 billion euros.
Flooding, or “acqua alta,” is common in Venice in November due to high tides, but it is getting worse. Of the ten heaviest floods in Venice on record, five have taken place in the last twenty years. Though the aforementioned St. Mark’s Basilica has only flooded six times in the last 1,200 years, it has flooded four times in the last twenty years. This year, the high tides were exacerbated by heavy rainfall and strong winds, and many, including Brugnaro and other Italian authorities are putting the blame on climate change. Students at LGB have called the events in Venice “proof in favor of global warming” and said that they “hope this will make politicians realize that they have to do something fast.”
The second reason the flooding is becoming more intense and more frequent is that Venice is sinking. Its tide office reports that its sea level is 10.16 cm higher than it was fifty years ago, and some believe the flooding is an inevitable design flaw of the city. As one LGB student articulated, “I always knew a floating city was a bad idea.”
