Floods -
acque alte -
have been an element of the
Venetian winter for hundreds of
years, but since the middle of
the twentieth century there's
been a relentless increase in
the frequency with which the
city's streets become immersed.
It's now very rare indeed,
between October and late
February, for a week to pass
without flooding, and it's not
at all uncommon for flooding of
some extent to occur on every
day of the week - indeed, in the
notoriously soggy winter of 2000
there was an
acqua alta
on thirty consecutive days. An
acqua
alta begins with water
seeping up through the pavement
of the Piazza and other
low-lying areas, such as Campo
San Polo, forming puddles that
quickly merge into a shallow
little lake. Soon after, you'll
notice that wavelets are
spilling over the quayside in
front of the Palazzo Ducale.
Sometimes it doesn't progress
much further than this, but
often it gets much worse. If you
hear sirens wailing over the
city it means that there's about
four hours to go before the peak
of a serious
acqua alta ,
which is defined as a flood that
rises in excess of 90cm above
the mean lagoon level at the
Salute. (Instruments on the side
of the Campanile di San Marco
display a continuous measurement
of the water level and a
prediction of the day's high
tide - if the red light is on, a
big flood is coming.)
Having lived with acque
alte for so long, the city
is well geared to dealing with
the nuisance. Shopkeepers in the
most badly effected areas insert
steel shutters into their
doorways to hold the water at
bay, while teams of council
workers lay jetties of
duck-boards along the major
thoroughfares and between the
chief vaporetto stops and dry
land. In extreme instances even
these measures are not
sufficient, and the duckboards
get washed away from the Piazza,
but usually the city keeps
functioning through the
inundation, and even on severe
days there are some sectors that
remain above the waves - maps at
most ACTV stops show the routes
of these walkways and where the
high ground lies. However,
Venice's pavements don't drain
very efficiently, so you will
find yourself splashing through
water many hours after high
tide. On a serious acqua alta
day almost every Venetian is
kitted out with rubber boots,
and you'd be well advised to
follow suit - there are plenty
of shops selling them cheaply.
And one other tip: if the
water's high and duckboards are
in place, use them - if you try
to improvise a route down the
back-alleys, the odds are that
sooner or later you'll end up
beating an ignominious retreat
in the face of an unruly canal.
