On Tuesday night, November 12th, floodwater levels in Venice, Italy hit 74 inches (1.87 meters), the highest water level recorded in 53 years. Venice’s acqua alta (high water) measurements began in 1923, and the highest levels on record were during November 1966, when canal waters rose 76 inches (1.94 meters).
The city of Venice is built in its entirety atop a saltwater lagoon, rising above the water on over 100,000 piles driven into the mud. Because of the nature of the tides and disturbances caused by propeller wake, the city often experiences varying water levels in its numerous canals. Each October through January, the acqua alta often causes canal water levels to rise to street level, and occasionally residents may wake up after a night of heavy rains to find the streets under an inch or two of water. Following the flooding, the city’s maintenance crews scrub the streets down to remove the salt buildup. Since much of the city is erected in marble and easily damaged by salt, workers must act fast to preserve the city’s rich art and architecture. However, Tuesday’s floods left an unprecedented amount of salt behind, and the city’s resources have been strained to manage the damages from the water. An estimated hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage has been incurred so far, with the total expected to rise as residents deal with water damage in their homes and businesses.
Famous attractions around Venice became completely waterlogged overnight, including St. Mark’s Basilica. “The Basilica is suffering structural damage because the water has risen and so it’s causing irreparable damage,” said the archbishop of the Diocese of Venice, Francesco Moraglia. The church’s marble floors were also damaged in October 2018, when the acqua alta submerged the Basilica and the surrounding area. The church has flooded six times in the 1200 years since its inception, and twice in the past two years.
By Wednesday morning, over 85% of the city was underwater. During the storm surge, multiple fires broke out around the city that its fire brigade was hard-pressed to respond to. Venice’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, declared a state of emergency following the deaths of two people in the area on Tuesday. Overnight, a man was electrocuted while trying to pump water out of his house. In a press conference, Brugnaro also promised that a long-delayed endeavor to safeguard Venice against floodwaters, the MOSE project, would be hastened to completion.
The project included designs for floodgates to limit water flow from the Adriatic Sea through inlets that lead to the lagoon Venice sits on. The MOSE project began in 1984, and it has been plagued by scandals and delays since its inception. Following the flood of 1966, the city government contracted designs for floodgates. After over a decade of experiments, the designs were completed in 2002, with a projected completion date in 2018. However, the project was delayed in 2014 when 35 people were arrested in connection with the consortium responsible for its funding. Mayor Giorgio Orsoni of Venice and people connected to him were indicted on charges of receiving illicit money reserved for the project to finance his campaign. The project has also been criticized for being costly to construct and maintain, with the ongoing construction costing over 5 billion euros. The WWF and other environmental groups have also criticized the project for being environmentally intrusive and destructive to the sea’s ecosystem.
Following the flooding, the Venice city government is scrambling to address the problems it will face in the future as flooding trends continue to drift towards a dangerous scale. “This is the result of climate change,” Mayor Brugnaro said on Twitter. Residents believe the city will have to change its philosophy addressing the floods in the coming years to adapt to new challenges presented by more extreme weather. Otherwise, Venice’s rich history and landmarks may be lost to the sea forever.
