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What Italian city is also known by the nickname Serenissima? Palermo, Genoa, Venice or Florence. Meaning serene, La Serenissima was a nickname for the Republic of Venice.
Acqua alta is another Italian term related to our next story. It means high water. It describes the very high tide that traditionally causes flooding throughout much of Venice. This has been going on for 1,200 years but an aqua alta that hit last November was particularly damaging. It flooded almost 90 percent of the city and that combined with the coronavirus pandemic caused tourist visits to plummet. Last Saturday was supposed to be the first acqua alta of the season but instead of this, St. Mark's Square looked more like this. Pretty dry except for some large puddles circling around the drains.
Since 1984, a project has been in development to try to stem the floods of Venice. It involves 78 flood barriers installed around the city. They're supposed to rise up to form a dam when acqua alta arrives keeping the Adriatic Sea from flooding Venice. The project has cost billions. It's been repeatedly delayed and distorted by corruption and controversy and many Venetians thought it wouldn't work, but apparently it did.
Places that are normally knee deep in flood waters were mostly dry on Saturday and Italian politicians called it a clear success for the project.
It didn't last though. The barriers are only set up to rise when the tide hits a very high level. If it falls short of that level, the barriers stay down but the city can still flood. That's what happened the next day and that's why some Venetians were disappointed. They're hoping the barriers will be adjusted to rise sooner preventing any seasonal flooding in the city.
