4 November 1966~ Flood of Venice. On 4 November 1966 a rare combination of abnormally high tides, rain-swollen rivers and a fierce Sirocco wind filled the Venice Lagoon to bursting and sent flood waters thundering through the canals to a height of 6ft 4in. It was the worst flood in the citys history. Thousands of residents were pinned in their homes for days, and art works valued at $6bn (£3.2bn), stored on ground floors or in cellars, were ruined. Venice, neglected and quietly rotting ever since the defeat of the Venetian Republic by Napoleon more than a century and a half before, was suddenly recognised as a city in dire need. Help, advice and money poured in, and a debate began on how to keep the flood waters at bay. The tide of 4 November may have been unique, but damaging tides of less dramatic proportions had over the preceding decades become an annual reality. What was needed was a way to keep them out. The man-made Venice Lagoon has three inlets from the sea. The industrialisation of the lagoon during the 20th century, the destruction of sand banks and their replacement by concrete ones, and the digging of canals to allow big ships to enter, have made the lagoon far more vulnerable to floods, experts say. Conditions inside and outside are today more or less the same. The only practicable way to keep out the high tides, engineers decided, was to have gates fixed to the lagoon floor that would hinge upwards to close it off to at times of emergency. And so the Moses scheme was drawn up, envisaging 78 massive gates, each 28m wide and 18m long, fixed to the lagoon floor.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 10:56:33 +0000
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