Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Flooding Excitement...

The Po River is the largest river in Italy and our local Tanaro River flows into the Po. For the last few days, there has been flooding due to all of the rain that our friend John brought with him from Seattle. As I write this, it's been a dry day and the excitement is dying down. The excitement included closing the schools in anticipation of possible flooding (today little Chiara is very happy about that) and being warned yesterday that a surge might occur and it would behoove us to put things "up" in our little apartment.
I escorted John to Milan yesterday for his early morning flight and on my way back, the train went over the Tanaro at several points. I didn't know anything about the flooding but the river really got my attention as the train seemingly skimmed over the water and tall trees were almost submerged. Hmmm, I wondered to myself, what's up? When I got home, Kim told me that the upstairs neighbor had come by and warned that a water surge could occur around noon; I found Kim putting things up high and dismantling the apartment. Alessandria has a history of a large flood in 1994; at that time, the apartment we are in was completely submerged. Hmmmm, I wondered again.
By now you've figured out that all is well; the water did minimally flood into parts of Alessandria but not our area. Rita came by while our upstairs neighbor Roberto and I were attempting to clear out the drain in front of our apartment. She asked me if I wanted to go take pictures of the river for the blog? The upstairs neighbor commented that I might want to wait until later in the day, when the river is past its potential surging point. But, let's hand it to Rita, she wants you all to know our news!

This is the Tanaro earlier this year, no flooding at that time. Notice the water levels around the arches.
Here's yesterday's level at around 6:30 PM.
The area near the river was blocked off but no one seemed to mind...
Lots of water...the rushing sound of it was quite loud.
Posted by Picasa

It was the event of the week. When I strolled over, there were people everywhere and cars were doubled parked.
Here's Chiara with Rita, tipping her hat to the Alessandria school system and their commitment to protecting the children.
Posted by Picasa

No comments: