San Martino blows through
Saint Martin’s day yesterday was a lot more emphatic than it usually is with the banging of pots and pans by kids on a quest for candy. In addition to the kids, and the traditional cookies, we got acqua alta — the second visitation of the season, and it was noticeable. The news tonight reported that it had reached 149 cm (4.8 feet) above sea level, the sixth highest since 1872. (The highest on record remains November 4, 1966, which was 190 cm/6.2 feet).
Water didn’t enter our hovel, but it didn’t miss by much.
We heard the sirens sound, as expected, two hours before the peak predicted for 8:20 AM. There were three extra tones, which indicated an anticipated maximum of 120 cm (3.9 feet). Not long after that, we heard the sirens again, this time with four tones (140 cm/4.5 feet). At that point we sat up and began to pay attention.
What made this event more interesting than usual wasn’t simply the height of the water, it was the speed of the wind — I mean, the force of the scirocco, which is always a major factor in keeping the lagoon in when it wants to go out. The wind was blowing around 40 km/hr (24 mph), with gusts of 55 km/hr (34 mph).
All this was part of a major weather system that hit large areas of Italy leaving real drama and destruction in its wake — mudslides, blocked roads, fallen trees, and more mayhem than we could ever manage here, thank God.
Naturally we went out to buy the newspaper and look around the neighborhood. I don’t usually take pictures of acqua alta anymore, as they have long since become repetitive. But this was toward the unusual side of the daily scale of nuisances.
Of course I’m glad the water didn’t exceed our top step, but if it had, I’d still be alive. This is the first of my annual pleas to the world to ignore the wailing and gnashing and published or broadcast claims that the city has been driven to its knees. I do not consider the fact that a tourist has had wade across the Piazza San Marco carrying her suitcase on her head an indication of anything larger than a temporary annoyance — it certainly does not make even the tiniest wail begin to form anywhere in my thorax. Anyone who has been dealing with Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath — not to mention people in stricken areas of Tuscany and Umbria — would find the suggestion that a large but temporary inconvenience could be compared to life-threatening catastrophe not only ridiculous, but offensive. By noon the water was all gone and the streets were drying off.
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Many of the shops along via Garibaldi were being pumped out — it was like walking around the gardens of the Villa d’Este with all the fountains.
- I was struck by yet another illustration of the fact that Venice is not perfectly flat. We were sloshing along in our hipwaders, while just beyond the gate there was high ground. When the acqua isn’t alta, you’d think it was all level.
- As we got closer to the Riva dei Sette Martiri facing the lagoon, the reality of the tide going out began to really mean something. The combined power of the water channeling out of the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal toward the sea hit the embankment approximately at the end of via Garibaldi. Lino said he’d never seen anything like this, and he’s seen every acqua alta in the past 70 years. Walking against this was like walking against an Alpine torrent. (Apologies for the blur — the wind and rain were also picking up force here.)
Reflections on water
There seems to be something wrong with the date November 4. And I’m not referring to the Unknown Soldier. I’m referring to water.
On November 4, 1966, the famous acqua extra-alta flowed over Venice. It was also the day on which the catastrophic flood of the Arno struck Florence. (Trivia alert: A similar flood hit Florence on November 4, 1333.)
And now November 4, 2011 has entered the annals of suffering in Genova, flooded by at least two of their rivers which were overwhelmed by torrential rains. http://youtu.be/0IUOI_xg62M
I mention this for several reasons, and not primarily to make you wonder what it is about November 4 that seems to make the firmament go feral.
One reason I mention it is because Venice usually gets the headlines, whether there is a real problem or not. The foreign press loves to dramatize us splashing around in the Piazza San Marco, but I’m not sure that it has drawn appropriate attention to the cataclysm which has driven Genova to its knees, so I am making a point of telling you here.
Another reason I bring it up is to repeat one of my essential points about water in Venice compared to water in other places, which is that you can’t compare them.
So I will summarize it here and — I hope — won’t drone on about it any more this year.
Acqua alta is not “flooding.” Flooding is what happened in Florence, and in Genova, and other places I won’t list, and it often involves destruction and death.
We get wet. They get killed. On November 4 in Genova, there were at least seven victims. One woman was crushed between two cars being swept away down what used to be a street. Another woman and her two small children were drowned when the crest of the flood caught them in the entryway of their apartment building before they could make it to the staircase. And so on.
These are utterly tragic stories which are — thank God — impossible to replicate with acqua alta.
Therefore I trust that any drama you may encounter in the upcoming months in the press, on TV, on tourists’ blogs, concerning water in Venice will not impress you. In fact, I hope you won’t even notice it.
To review: Acqua alta is tide. It comes in, it goes out. It does not destroy bridges, rip up trees, or make floating trucks smash into buildings. Or humans.
So please spare a thought for the people in Genova (and elsewhere) who are suffering hideously from this avalanche of water. Do not expend any thought whatever on whether people in Venice have to put their boots on for two hours.
Though if you think we ought to start a group to advocate the abolition of November 4 from the calendar, I’ll be ready to sign up.
Remember acqua alta? No?
Fall is discernible here not only by the drifting leaves and deflating temperatures but by the enlivening of the tides. Sounds like some folkloristic event, like bringing the cows down from the alpine pastures or going out to slay the tuna.
The enlivening of the tides consists of somewhat higher high tides (sometimes), and wind which at the moment is going every which way, trying to find the path that will give it the most potential for annoying people and also for enlivening the tide. Yes, I anthropomorphize the wind and sometimes the water and also the fog and clouds and even a few people.
Which is my way of saying that at some point — maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of the winter, if not of your life — there could be high water. We are approaching the entrance to the season of the infamous acqua alta — Flooding!! — that gets people not from here so wild-eyed and frantic. Venice is sinking! Man the lifeboats! Belay the cabinboy!
So with the clear anticipation of wailing articles to accompany the wailing warning sirens, and to somehow reposition everybody’s mind concerning this phenomenon — seeing that whenever it happens, the reports abroad make it sound as if we live our lives to the sound of water lapping at the bookcases — I’d like to share some information.
I have consulted the Tide Center’s data for acqua alta in 2011. The last one was on February 16. And then, after six hours, it went away.
Therefore we have now lived 251 consecutive days without acqua alta. Two-thirds of an entire year. I scarcely remember what the siren sounds like.
I just thought I’d mention this, in case anyone might happen to read an article in the next few months — or more likely, many articles — giving the impression that living in Venice means that we spend most of our time yelling “Women and children first!”