Water | Venice: I am not making this up

Holiday high water

December 30, 2009 1 Comment

The big present everybody got this year was acqua alta. It seems to have been reported fairly extensively in the world at large — not that people elsewhere don’t have enough drama of their own to keep up with — but there appears to be enough inherent drama, or diversion, in the phenomenon to attract attention.

The water comes up, the water goes down. Notice that the Piazza San Marco is not flat.

And they’re predicting more for today, New Year’s Eve, and also Day. Happily, these tides will peak at a decent hour, between 9:00 and 10:00 AM, so we can get some sleep. Thoughtful of them.

We spent most of Christmas Eve night listening, not for the reindeer hooves on the roof, but for the wind to veer around from the southeast to anywhere else it felt like going (or coming). But the forecasts (regular weather as well as high-water categories), which we consulted about every ten minutes, were implacable: There was going to be a strong scirocco (shih-RAWK-oh), and that meant that we were essentially destined to have “water on the ground,” as the Venetians call it in its more modest form.

The scirocco’s force pushes against the lagoon and prevents (or severely slows, but I’m going with prevents) the tide from going out in its normal way and even exacerbates the subsequent normal rising tide. The weather report specifies the direction and strength of the wind, but all we need to do is open the front door and listen: A strong scirocco causes heavy surf which in turn make a low, smooth roar, something like a distant jet preparing to taxi for take-off. And we can easily hear it, out there toward the left, where the Lido’s slim line of beach is doing what it can to keep the Adriatic where it belongs.

The tide doesn't come pouring over the battlements, but merely rises up through the storm drains. This little pool will just keep expanding till it covers the Piazza. After an hour or so, it will depart (tranquilly) by the same route. — The tide doesn't come pouring over the battlements, but merely rises up through the storm drains. This little pool will just keep expanding till it covers the Piazza. After an hour or so, it will depart by the same route.

The city’s Tide Center was predicting that the maximum height, at 4:30 AM, Christmas Morning, would be 150 cm [59 inches, or almost five feet] above average sea level. I will explain the intricacies of these measurements and their meaning in the real world on another occasion, though let me just note here that Venice does not sit precisely at sea level, but at various heights above it, so these numbers are not immediately as dramatic as they sound.

As the Tide Center explains on its website, “97 percent of the city is at about 100 cm above the average sea level. This means that the amount of water that could invade the city is always well below the maximum number predicted. For example, an exceptional tide of 140 cm corresponds in reality to about 60 cm [23 inches] in the lowest points of the city (Piazza San Marco).”

I don’t know how high our domicile happens to sit above the average sea level, but we knew that at 150 cm there would be water coming over our top step and into our house. It’s just a little hovel, true, but it’s not a boat, unfortunately — not that you want water coming into your boat, either. Venice is an excellent place in which to discover the meaning of “time and tide wait for no man.” You can slow an avalanche pretty much as easily as you can slow the tide.

We knew our tidal limit because we had water in the house once before. Yes, that was one memorable moment. On December 1, 2008, we stood there at our doorstep and watched the water slip under our door — and more to the point, under the temporary barrier we had paid 400 euros for. But it wouldn’t have made any difference because only God and, perhaps, the architect has any idea what’s under our dwelling because water began to enter through a fissure in the kitchen wall, and then up from an ungrouted joint between the slabs of stone paving between the bedroom and the hallway. I can tell you that if the tide wants to come up through your floor you better just let it.

Life goes on, and so does the bread delivery.

By the way, nothing was damaged, and when the tide turned about an hour and a half later, we got out our brooms and just swept it out to sea. Then I had to wash the floor with fresh water, but it needed it anyway. (I waxed it too — I was feeling like celebrating.) Then we put all the stuff that had been thrown onto the bed back under the bed, and life went on. No death, no damage, and as I say, the floor was clean. But you can’t count on high water being so relatively minor every time, and you really don’t want water, salt or otherwise, under your refrigerator and washing machine.

So at 2:00 AM on Christmas Eve (that is, Christmas morning) we got up and began preparing for the onslaught. No wailing, no hysterical vows to the Virgin; we just began to move whatever we could to higher ground (the bathroom) or on the bed. Last year, unbelieving to the last moment, we left everything where it was, which meant that Lino accomplished what ought to be an Olympic sport — the pulling-out-stuff-and-throwing-it-all-on-bed event — in mere seconds.

Then we took out candles and flashlights. I frittered away a little time sweeping and dusting, since I was going to have to do it anyway. We stared out the front door at the water. We listened.

But we were spared. Lino, whose instincts have been honed by an entire lifetime in boats in the lagoon, sensed when the reprieve was arriving — he could tell that the tide had slowed (“gotten tired,” as they put it) at about 3:30. The tide, in fact, did begin to turn then, earlier than predicted, and lower (143 cm) than predicted. The roar of the wind was diminishing. Christmas morning was beginning to look better than we’d supposed.

Not easy to explain "Just hold it till the tide goes down" to your dog.

Turns out that this event was the fourth highest tide since the city began to record them. It also turns out — for real weather geeks — that one reason it occurred was not so much the force of the scirocco but the fact that it was constant for quite a while. In any case, nothing you can do about that; whatever the wind is doing, you just have to go along with it.

But I have to repeat what I always repeat when high tide makes the news: Nobody dies. Nothing gets especially damaged (I put in “especially” so somebody won’t say “Well what about my bookcase?”). The shopowners had to spend the night keeping vigil in their shops, which earned a few lines in the general coverage, but I say: So? We were up too and we don’t have anything we’re planning to sell. Water damage, whether it’s genuine or just labeled as such, is a great way for merchants to get rid of stock that isn’t moving anyway. I did not make that up.

Another point to consider: Whenever the news reports refer to the city being “under water,” or “flooded,” or however they term it, they never say how much of the city, nor do they say to what depth (it isn’t uniform; does one inch count as “flooded”?). Anyway, in the case of an exceptional high water, such as our Christmas Eve marvel, 56 percent of the city has water on the ground. Sound bad? Let’s do this: “44 percent of the city did not have water.” I suddenly feel better. Why don’t the newspapers ever do that? Rhetorical question.

So on to the next tide, I say, and pull out your cameras. But I think somebody should make it illegal to bring your boat into the Piazza San Marco, and doubly illegal to float around so people can snap your picture. The tide comes in, the tide goes out, all it leaves is some muddy slime

The street outside our house is like every other street when the tide goes out: damp with a fine muddy film. — The street outside our house is like every other street when the tide goes out: Damp with a fine muddy film.

The receding water as usual leaves behind eelgrass and stuff.

and bits of garbage tangled up in clumps of eelgrass and busted bits of reeds floating in from the barene, the marshy wetlands. This has been going on since the ocean was invented. If you really can’t stand it, go live somewhere more tranquil — say, Haiti in hurricane season, or Bangladesh when the typhoons come through. Or even certain parts of Tuscany the past few days, where some rivers have had nervous breakdowns under the unusually torrential rain. It’s just a suggestion.

So I’m going to stick with wishing everyone happy holidays. I’ll be back with more bulletins.

Meaning no disrespect, but this lion distinctly looks as if he's checking how alta the acqua is going to be rising. I've seen people who look almost exactly like this, though without the wings.

Nature, Water

Snow Day

December 20, 2009 No Comments

We got snow! While I realize that our little meterological adventure was nothing compared to what the East Coast of the US has gone through, not to mention northern Europe (stories of the trains trapped under the Channel inspire a special kind of shudder), it still was enough to jolt us out of our midwinter torpor.

Even here, flights were cancelled, or delayed, and I have no doubt that stories of catastrophes on the mainland will be coming in.

But for us, the situation was more beautiful than distressing, if you don’t count our miscalculation on getting home before the acqua alta was high enough to mostly cover our feet. (Yes, we were warned: two tones on the sirens. But I didn’t take it seriously.) Sorry about my Timberland hiking boots; hope I can salvage something from the effects of salt water.

We usually get at least one severe cold snap each winter, though it seems to want to wait till just after Christmas. So this year we got it early. For the past few days it’s been at or below freezing and Saturday morning we woke to the double-whammy of snow and acqua alta.

Two hours later, the scene had changed. One good thing about acqua alta is that at least it removes the snow.

When Lino was a lad, as soon as the flakes began to fall, men would present themselves at the central office of the Vigili (a sort of local police) to pick up a shovel and make some extra money cleaning the streets and bridges. He says you could hear them out on the street, talking, as early as 4:00 AM, waiting to get to work. Intensely intelligent and also effective and probably didn’t cost the city all that much. All good reasons why they don’t do it anymore.

Our faithful trash collectors were scarce to invisible this morning. Any tiny deviation from the norm throws the squad into total disarray. No snow shoveled, no garbage collected — I can’t believe that every sanitation worker in the city had to be in the Piazza San Marco to set up the high-water walkways. Perhaps they were all clustered in a doorway (more likely it was a warm bar somewhere) drawing straws to determine who’d be the one who had to go out and actually work.

I have some happy, if highly eccentric, memories of a real cold snap here. One winter morning a number of years ago, when the cold had come down from Siberia like the wolf on the fold, we went out rowing. Yes, of course we’re mentally unstable.

This time it wasn't fog that made the city look like this. Blowing snow is also pretty effective for blurring the scenery.

Here’s what I remember: Rowing down a canal and our oars slicing neatly (once in, once out) through the forming ice. What a fun little crunching sound it made. What wasn’t quite so fun was the wind blowing so hard that the spray from the waves froze in the bottom of the boat. I spent the entire time we were rowing back imagining that my shoes were nailed in place, because it was like standing on a skating rink. If I’d slipped just once, I’d never have gotten my footing back. I took my mind off this problem by trying to imagine if it would be possible to row on my knees.

But that was nothing. There was the famous — make that “epic” freeze of February, 1929: people were walking across the lagoon from the Fondamente Nove to San Michele. Impressive. Of course, one reason that happened (and probably could never happen again) isn’t just the factor of the degrees below zero. There wasn’t the constant maelstrom of waves back then that we have today, which would prevent any rational water from freezing. If you’ve got a really low temperature, few or no waves, plus only the tiniest tidal variation (twice a month, when the moon is exactly half, the tide scarcely moves, which would help the freezing, obviously) it’s almost inevitable that ice will form. I have to say I’m glad we didn’t reach that point. Delicate little skins of ice covering the water is one thing, but not this polar purgatory.

So on the whole, we made out really well. The snow came, and then, when the tide turned in the early afternoon, the sun came out and we were fine. Except, I mean, for the bags of garbage which will lie out there till Monday.

The lions in front of the Arsenal were not amused. "Remind me again how we ended up here, surrounded by water? Oh, right: spoils of war. Great."

As long as you don't have to drive, scenes like this are really beautiful.

The guys who run the bumper cars at the temporary amusement park on the Riva dei Sette Martiri have to clean up the old-fashioned way: physical exertion.

Eventually at least a couple of ecological operators, as they're called, had to get out and do something. The Barbie-sized wheelbarrow appears to contain enough salt for exactly one bridge.

All the gondoliers who didn't come to work in the Bacino Orseolo are just going to wait for it to melt, then bail.

Nature, Water

Acqua alta: some snaps

December 1, 2009 No Comments

I will eventually be organizing a Gallery page, but meanwhile here are a few additional views of the water-on-the-ground of yesterday. They are not intended to be sensational, but instructive. There is an important difference in the two concepts, especially where issues involving Venice are concerned.

As you see, the streets of Venice are neither perfectly flat, nor a uniform height above sea level. Therefore reports of Venice being FLOODED are not very helpful. Is this street flooded?

The immediate point of pumping is not to empty your place of water; it's to keep it from getting any higher while the tide is still rising. (Then you pump to get it all out.) One theory of what is making the liquid white is that it is detergent. The theory of my nose leads me to suspect something more primeval. — The immediate point of pumping is not to empty your place of water; it's to keep the level from increasing while the tide is still rising. (Then you pump to get it all out.) One theory of what is making the liquid white is that it is detergent. The theory of my nose leads me to suspect something more primeval.

Sorry, your prescription isn't going to be ready till the pharmacists finish bailing out the store.

No special drama here, they keep the vegetables up off the floor all the time anyway.

Now here's a solution: Get your stuff up off the floor before the water comes in. Simple, cheap, effective -- I welcome explanations of why so many merchants prefer to beg for sympathy as well as contributions from the city to pay for damages. — Now here's a solution: Get your stuff up off the floor before the water comes in. Simple, cheap, effective. I welcome explanations of why so many merchants prefer to beg for sympathy as well as handouts from the city to pay for damage. Why should there be damage in the first place? And by the way, the city doesn't own your shop, you do.

What often contributes to high water occurring is an insistent southeast wind, as you see blowing across the water here.

High-water etiquette requires you to slow down when approaching and passing anyone with knee-high boots. If you are sloshing along you will splash them, and they are already desperately trying to keep their clothes dry.

A very humble but crucial byproduct of high water is that it makes it impossible to pass under most normal bridges. Gondolas, taxis, and especially barges have to either find an alternate route or just wait till the tide falls. Even some vaporetto lines are sent up the Grand Canal because they can't pass under the bridge near Piazzale Roma. — A very humble but crucial side effect of high water is that it makes it impossible to pass under most normal bridges. Gondolas, taxis, and especially barges have to either find an alternate route or just wait till the tide falls. Even some vaporetto lines are sent up the Grand Canal because they can't pass under the bridge near Piazzale Roma.

Oh gosh -- we couldn't get to work on time because there was acqua alta. Here are some men who are looking desperately concerned and distressed by this. I imagine at least one of them is trying to think of the nearest cafe that is on dry ground.

Or maybe it's a guy thing and not related to having boots at all, the need to stop in groups to analyze, compare, contrast, discuss, and otherwise dissect the moment.

I am fascinated by the problem-solving approach taken by the man on the left. His knee-high socks were drenched (see wet footprints) and he is rolling up his trousers. I'm hoping he had the sense at least to have taken off his shoes before he stepped into the water. But why didn't he take off his socks as well?

One has heard of a bridge to nowhere. I offer the passarella, or walkway, to -- well, not exactly nowhere. Right to the water from which it has been placed to defend you. Maybe they ran out of boards.

Venetian-ness, Water

Acqua alta: business as usual

November 30, 2009 3 Comments

As you may already have noticed, the world didn’t end last night.

First, it didn’t rain. So much for the Deluge from Hell. This is also a Good Thing because when there’s lots of rain it not only irritates me, it can also aggravate the acqua alta — not so much because of precipitation precipitating into the lagoon directly, but into the streams and rivers which then, overloaded, empty into the lagoon.

Our street as seen from across the canal at 7:45 AM. The tide is still rising but there is still an island (shrinking) of dry pavement. — Our street as seen from across the canal at 7:45 AM. The tide is still rising but there is an island (shrinking) of dry pavement.

At 5:00 AM the sirens sounded, and I waited to count the tones. There were three. I enjoyed two seconds of relief, then checked myself because of the clearly demonstrated unreliability of the forecast. (It hasn’t rained yet.) But where the sirens are concerned, it wouldn’t have been the first time that one message arrived, to be followed by a revision. It’s better not to be too quick to heave those sighs of relief.

So I lay there in the dark, listening for clues to the water’s progress. I heard someone walking by the window: Normal footsteps. No water yet. Before long, I heard someone else pass making plk-plk-plk noises: Water only an inch or two. Not long after that, I began to hear sloosh-SLOOSH-sloosh-SLOOSH. Water deep enough to require shuffling instead of stepping. Oh well.

This is a beautiful thing to see: water that hasn't risen beyond our first step.

At 7:45 the water was still rising, which was to have been expected. I went out to get the newspaper. At 8:30 it had peaked and was still well within manageable limits. Excellent! What would I have called this on the official warning scale? Code Mauve? Code Robin’s-Egg Blue?

Water all gone. Now let's think about lunch.

At 10:00 the tide was noticeably falling, and by 11:00 the streets were no longer, in Benchley’s famous phrase, full of water.

The scirocco wind, however, has been fairly strong (they said “moderate”) all day, and is predicted to increase to “strong” right about now. Then we’re supposed to have a thunderstorm, then everything should return to normal.

Speaking of normal, one thing which always happens here with acqua alta is that various people put out their bags of garbage for the garbagemen to collect, even though they must know that the men are not going to be collecting because they’re all supposed to be working like crazed beavers setting up and taking down the temporary walkways. So the bags sit there until the rising water lifts them from the pavement and eventually floats them away, out to sea.

Floating bags of garbage: Just one of many unsung aspects of acqua alta.

Floating bags of garbage are NOT acts of God, no matter what their owners may think. Oh wait — the bags don’t have owners. As soon as a bag is on public soil, it suddenly becomes mystically orphaned, anonymous, invisible. Except to me, the maniac foreigner, who watches these plastic spheroids bobbing around and sees a big neon sign above each one flashing
“BRAIN DEAD.”

The show -- the bread, the detergent, the whatever -- must go on. And someone must go with it.

The people out on the street were pretty much moving along with Monday morning as usual. Shops which are likely to be awash were indeed awash; their owners were pumping them out. Some others, like two different butchers, were letting nature to take its course while they got on with business. Evidently neither snow nor rain nor dead of night nor high water can stay these men from the swift completion of their appointed pork chops.

The floor is ankle-deep in brackish water and he is cleaning the plexiglass covering the case of meat. I didn't ask.

I ran into Paolo, the bank teller, out on via Garibaldi.

“No work today,” he told me. “Those idiots from Bergamo [owners of the bank] didn’t listen to us when they were designing the interior. We told them, ‘Put the electric outlets up high.’ They said, “What the hell do you guys know?’ So now all the electric outlets are under water and if we turn on the computers, everything will go poof. All they needed to do was put the outlets higher, but nooooooo…”

For the record, his plan for the day wasn’t altered all that much, because I went past a few hours later when the water had begun to subside and there he was at his teller’s window, working away. High water — unfortunately, if you really want the day off — does not last forever.

Like virtually all Venetians, he took it all in stride. If he has time to think about the street, he clearly isn't worried about his house.

Walking back to the house, I passed a man who was sweeping the water toward the canal. I paused. He was sweeping the pavement of a large street which was still very much under water — hence the water was not being removed, only shifted. This required investigation.

“Dogs,” he said briskly, smiling. “High water is really a good thing for Venice. It doesn’t hurt anybody. And it takes away the smell so dogs don’t go looking for someplace where another dog has ever pooped.”

I recalled having heard a similar comment from Arrigo Cipriani (of Harry’s Bar) when I interviewed him years ago. A native Venetian, he too wasn’t especially impressed by high water. “It’s a great way to get the streets clean,” he declared.

Back in the old days nobody's mother would have carried any child who could walk. Here's a woman thanking God that she stopped at having two. — Back in the old days no mother would have carried any child who could walk. Here's a woman thanking God that she stopped at having two.

“High water was a delight for us when we were kids,” Lino has told me more than once. “But it never made any sense — we’d be in school and the teachers would say ‘There’s high water! Everybody go home!’ And so we’d walk home in the high water; you can imagine what kind of state we were in by the time we got there. Soaking wet right up to here.” (He indicates his collarbone.) “What sense did that make, sending us home because there was high water? In just another hour, the water went down anyway.”

No boots in the old days, either. “Boots? Who had boots? Boots are a newfangled thing that began to come in after 1966. We went home barefoot, carrying our shoes.”

Clearly a few people can still figure out how to get where they're going without boots.

I too, may I note, have walked home barefoot in high water. More than once. I can’t understand people who stand there at the water’s edge looking trapped and helpless like lemurs on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Just take your shoes off and get going! Besides, I can attest that the water is virtually always warm (if that helps to convince you.) The scirocco wind is warm, and we haven’t even had a real cold snap yet. How cold could the water be? Get a grip, people.

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