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| A lone person wades through the flooding in Venice, Italy this week. It was the second highest flood crest on record. Credit: Getty Images |
In the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up department, the Venato Regional Council sort of a county or state government for Venice and environs, got flooded out literally moments after voting against spending money to combat climate change, CNN tells us.
Of course, as I describe below, climate change was only one of many ingredients that caused this massive flood in and around Venice.
But the irony of this story is certainly there.
Says CNN:
"The council chamber in Ferro Fini Palace started to take in water around 10 p.m. local time, as councilors were debating the 2020 regional budget, Democratic Party councilor Andrea Zazoni said in a long Facebook post.
'Ironically, the chamber was flooded two minutes after the majority League Brothers of Italy, and Forza Italia parties rejected our amendments to tackle climate change,' Zazoni, who is deputy chairman of the environment committee said in the post."
The League Brothers party is aligned with the Italian government's far right leadership. The head of the League Brothers for the Venato Regional Council rejected Zazoni's assertions saying the council has spent money on anti-pollution efforts.
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As anybody with a hint of awareness about Italy knows, the historic city of Venice is wet and prone to flooding.
Many of us have seen photos over the years of tourists standing knee deep in water or picking their way over makeshift platforms above flood waters. The city has some flooding at least a couple dozen times a year.
This week's Venice flooding went way beyond that. You can see video at the bottom of this post.
About 85 percent of Venice was flooded, the worst inundation since the famous storm of 1966, according to the Weather Channel.
The water reached 6.14 feet above normal, just 2.5 inches lower than the historic 1966 flood, the Associated Press reports.
There are fears that St. Mark's Basilica could be damaged, as water flowed through windows and into the crypt beneath, says the Weather Channel. That might be compromised the historic building's structure, such as the columns that hold St. Mark's up. The building is made largely of marble, which corrodes easily in salt water.
St. Marks has flooded just six times in its nearly 1,000 year history, but two of those times were in the past two years, says CBS News.
The Associated Press also said the Ca'Pesaro modern art gallery was damaged because water created an electrical short circuit, which started a fire.
Those platforms tourists walked on during high water were taken down because the inundation was so bad those platforms could have washed away. Shopkeepers traditionally put boards in front of doors to keep water out, but this time the water overtopped those boards, flooding countless businesses and homes.
On the bright side, the AP said that priceless artworks in Venice were unscathed.
"These are the effects of climate change," Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said on Twitter as he surveyed the damage, which he said amounted to hundreds of millions of euros.
He's probably only partly right about climate change. It could well have influenced this week's flooding, but it's not the only player.
Plenty of things came together to create the destructive Venice flooding. A full moon made ocean tides higher worldwide. Strong southerly winds pushed the high tide into Venice. Plus, the city is slowly sinking because of ground water pumping.
And, yes, climate change contributed because sea levels are rising due to the warming. That made the water a little higher than it otherwise would have been.
Venice has been building multi-billion dollar flood barriers for more than a decade, but the project has been plagued by delays, cost overruns and corruption.
Video of the flood from The Guardian:
More footage from the BBC. Note the water flowing into shops and hotels:
