In flood-affected area in Italy, residents fear that this will not be the last
When floods hit the northern Italian town of Lugo last week, causing a local watercourse to overflow and spilling water into the streets and surrounding fields, Irinel Lungu, 45, retreated to the second floor with his wife and toddler from their home.
As rescuers navigated flooded streets in dinghies to deliver baby food and rescue elderly people from their homes, the pair watched in the cold as the water rose higher and higher.
Downstairs it was “water up to my chest,” he said on Saturday, adding: “We had nowhere to go.”
No help has yet arrived in some parts of Lugo and other northern Italian towns that were engulfed in floods that killed 14 people and left thousands homeless. Swollen rivers and canals have inundated vast areas of the countryside. Hundreds of dangerous landslides have paralyzed much of the area. And some landlocked mountain towns are completely isolated, essentially reachable only by helicopter.
On Saturday, as the rains started to fall again, residents around the ancient city of Ravenna – once the capital of the Byzantine Empire – faced a flood as the receding water in some of the hardest-hit towns warped and exposed soggy furniture next to broken kitchen appliances. . Soaked benches sank into the mud. Bottles of olive oil and canned goods, covered in mud, lined the streets. A car, lifted by the rushing water, teetered precariously on a garden gate.
The floods have upended tens of thousands of lives in the Emilia-Romagna region as exceptional weather brought about half of typical annual rainfall in 36 hours in some areas. And experts say it may not be so exceptional anymore.
Extreme weather events have become increasingly common in Europe, from the violent storms and raging floods that killed dozens in Germany two years ago, to the scorching temperatures that set records in a normally temperate Britain last July. Italy has been through its own fair share of extreme events, caught between periods of extreme drought that desiccates cities, paralyzes agriculture and dries out the country’s breadbasket, and then torrential rains and floods like those of the past week.
The extremes create a brutal cycle in which hills denuded by summer wildfires and land desiccated by drought cannot absorb rain—in this case, biblical amounts of it. The pattern could mean that millions of Italians are now surrounded by water, but thirst for a drop in the summer.
Last summer the land was so dry “you could see cracks,” said Roberto Zanardi, 59, who lives in the Lugo area, annoyed as he pointed to submerged pear and persimmon orchards around him on Saturday. “Look at them now.”
Italy’s leaders are trying to come to terms with what scientists say is the new normal of climate change, but some lawmakers are questioning whether the country has missed opportunities to better prepare for the extreme flooding many saw coming and to protect land with artificial basins or other solutions.
“Let’s realize that we live in a risk area and that the process of tropicalizing the climate has also reached Italy,” Nello Musumeci, the country’s minister of civil protection, said in an interview with La Stampa last week. a newspaper based in Turin in Northern Italy.
“In the agendas of all governments over the past 80 years, the vulnerability of our territory has never really been a priority,” he added. “The question to be asked is not whether a disastrous event like Tuesday’s will happen again, but when and where it will happen.”
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced on Saturday that she would cut short her trip to Japan, where she took part in the Group of 7 meeting, so that she could visit the flooded areas on Sunday and lead the response to the emergency.
“Frankly, I can’t stay so far away from Italy at such a difficult time,” she said at a press briefing. “My conscience demands that I return.”
The flooding was the result of what experts described as a perfect storm of bad weather, already saturated ground from storms earlier in the month and high seas.
Heavy rains swept over a large area of Emilia-Romagna for quite some time, pushed by fronts and blocked by the Apennines.
A storm in the nearby Adriatic Sea trapped water on the lower plains.
Rivers, streams and canals have overflowed their banks and in some cases eroded their dikes, in an area that is one of the Italy is most at risk for flooding. Soil that had been dried out by months of drought struggled to absorb that water.
On Saturday, workers along the banks of the Santerno River in Emilia-Romagna operated a crane to demolish a two-story building after water broke through the river’s 10-meter-high bank, flooding the building and stripping its facade . had ended up in a field across the road. It was left lying next to several cars and pieces of torn and washed away asphalt.
Andrea Burattoni, a 48-year-old farmer living on the street, watched as the crane slammed into the walls, gradually revealing the remains of what was once a house. Bed frames, kitchen furniture and a sports trophies cabinet fell to the floor. The owner, an elderly resident, had been evacuated by his family when the water rose.
Still, Mr. Burattoni and his family stayed put, despite the fear they felt as the water swelled through the fields.
“The roar was deafening, just like the earthquake,” he said, referring to the 2012 quakes that devastated the region. On Saturday, he surveyed his fields where he grew peaches next to vineyards, buried under muddy brown water. “The roots don’t breathe — it’s like they’re covered in a plastic tarp,” he said. “It will take weeks for the water to drain, but the season is over.”
Experts say much of the world can also expect more unusual and severe storms as the Earth warms, increasing the urgency for action to protect communities.
Barbara Lastoria, a hydraulic engineer at Rome’s Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, said the water management debates sparked over the past week because of the floods meant little if the larger and existential issue of climate change was not addressed.
“The increase in temperature leads to the development of extreme phenomena such as droughts and floods – they are two sides of the same coin,” she said. “Rising temperature is like gasoline in the engine of extreme phenomena: it must be dealt with first.”
For some, the flood was a reason to move.
Claudio Dosi, 46, a welder in Sant’Agata sul Santerno, said he was considering moving after his parents were evacuated to a local sports center when their house was full of water. “I’m not sure we have a future here,” he said.
Others would not budge.
Lillia Osti, 77, said she had lived in the same house surrounded by wheat and pear fields northwest of Lugo for 60 years. Flooding wasn’t uncommon in that low-lying area, she said, though the water had never flooded “our ground floor on the furniture” before.
Around her, relatives removed soggy doors so they could dry. “This is not normal, but as long as we live, we will rebuild,” she said.