Words Fail Me

As Venice slowly emerged from its flooding, I finally had a chance to wander around and marvel at how glorious the city is when it’s not in the middle of a natural disaster.Our original plans in shambles, Stephanie and I bought train tickets to Bologna and escaped the city.

The evening after the worst flooding, Stephanie & I ventured out into the city so I could at least see some of Venice’s iconic sites.  The cobblestones were slick and covered in detritus.

[NOTE: I am writing this a full five months after the events occurred, partly because the events of my Venice trip are difficult to describe adequately and partly out of disappointment that I didn’t have the presence of mind to take photographs of things as they were happening.  Apologies.]

Checking in to our boutique hotel, Stephanie and I were informed that a very high tide was expected that night, but they would be putting up the always did in such cases.  After the fact, I saw that the flood prediction for high tide was to be 140cm.  In the end, there were reports that it was 187cm.

Around 9 (or was it 10?) we started hearing the sounds of mopping echoing from down the hall.  It seemed like the water had overtopped the barrier.  The hallways on the first floor were all marble and eventually the water begin to trickle down under our door as the sounds of frantic activity in the lobby intensified.

Stephanie went out to check on this and almost immediately slipped on the wet marble, landing on her elbow, and injuring herself terribly.  We closed ourselves in our room and moved anything on the floor–shoes and luggage–up to “higher ground”.  (Eventually, I would resort to putting things on top of the wardrobe.)   Water begin to trickle in from the doors out onto the atrium as well.   The next day, the high water mark in the atrium could be seen.The power was shut off, which seemed sensible.  We lit the room with the screen of my MacBook.  We sat on top of the bed (reminding me of the hot air balloon bed in Pippi Longstockings which eventually loses altitude and touches the sea.)  The water rose to my ankles.  To my calves.  Chairs began to float.  Water was streaming in through the door jamb.  It seemed like having the door closed wasn’t having any effect, so I opened it.

It was like a scene in submarine movies where they open the door, water floods in from the other chamber, and the water pressure makes it a desperate struggle to close again.  One of the images seared into my mind was that of closing the door to within a few inches and seeing water at about the height of the doorknob rushing in like a waterfall from the emergency-lit hallway.

When the water level was a the top of my thighs, management had us all retreat to the second floor of the hotel.  A little later, I would go back downstairs to wade through the water, lose shoes floating past me, to rescue our luggage and carry it back upstairs (careful not to slip on the treacherous marble floor or stairs.)  The first floor “refugees” were each given rooms on the second floor, presumably those of guests who were not able to get to the hotel because the city of Venice had shut down entirely.  Exhausted, I think we fell asleep around 1am.

The next morning, this was the aftermath in our original room.The rhythm of impassable high tides continued for the next several days.

Photographer Natalia Elena Massi shot a series of striking images (which weren’t even when the water was at its highest that first night!) including this one of Piazza San Marco:
Trapped in our second story room during the next high tide, Stephanie & I had a chance–with the benefit of hindsight–to more fully appreciate the email one of the organizers of the conference Stephanie was there to attend: