Italy Slammed By Ferocious Storm; Damage $Billions, Other Destructive Storms In France, Britain

A massive landslide left this Sicilian town hanging
on a big precpice. Heavy rains from what was likely
the severest storm the region's history contribute to
the landslide. 

While we in the United States have been distracted with its own mega storm, another intense storm has caused havoc and severe damage in Italy this month. 

The storm, named Harry by meteorologists swept Italy from January 18 to 21. 

The storm was likely the worst in the region's history. At the very least, it was the worst in recent memory. 

It hit hardest in Sicily and Calabria.  Huge waves towering to over 30 feet smacked into shorelines, blasting through beachside restaurants and other businesses.   

Waves off the coast of eastern Sicily reached to nearly 40 feet, which is said to be unprecedented for the Mediterranean Sea. Waves (10 meters) in height battered coastal buildings. 

"The force of the waters swept away protective barriers, debris, and large quantities of sand onto the public roads of Catania. The receding tide on the Sicilian coast only began to be observed around 3 a.m. Wednesday," Italianismo.com reported. 

 Surprisingly but happily, there's been no reported deaths so far. Officials said evacuation warnings ahead of the storm and rescue crews helped a great deal. 

There were some close calls. According to Italianismo.com, waves struck the mayors of two cities as they were jointly doing a live broadcast on social media to report on the bad weather.

 Locals and officials were stunned by the storm. 

"The Calabria regional director of the civil protection department, Domenico Costarella, described the cyclone as a 'once in a century event,'" according to WantedinRome.com, an English language Italian news site. 

Damage in Sicily alone was over 500 Euros, or about $590 million U.S. dollars. Total damage in Italy is estimated at $1.7 billion.  

On land, torrential rains caused extreme flooding and landslides. San Sostene in Calabria had more than 22 inches of rain in three days. 

A couple days after the storm tapered off, a huge landslide struck the town of Niscemi, Sicily. The slide is about two and half miles long and is carving out a drop of about 150 feet. The slide at last report was still active and additional houses have fallen in the past 24 hours and more will probably go. About 1,500 people have been evacuated.

Separately, Storm Ingrid hit hard in parts of the UK and France on Saturday. Huge waves damaged a sea wall on a main railway around Devon and Cornwall. A historic pier was washed away and coastal homes were heavily damaged when waves smashed into them. . 

Storm Ingrid hit less than a month after Storm Goretti left widespread wind damage in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. A new system, called Storm Chandra is now moving into the United Kingdom with strong winds, heavy rain and higher elevation snow. 

Storm Ingrid also caused damaging floods in parts of France. 

Videos:

Huge ways crash into the Italian Coast in last week's Storm Harry. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on tbgat

 Waves crash through the window of a seaside restaurant in Italy. As always, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

You have to be careful these days about AI slop, but I believe the images of the storm are the real deal in this summary video. Again, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.

One more: Destruction on the coast in Messina. Again, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Video shows houses and buildings teetering on the edge of a huge landslide in Sicily. Aerial view shows how huge slab of land sloughed away, leaving a huge cliff that is eating away at the hilltop town. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on the arrow within the image. 

 

Venice, Italy, Just Had Its Highest Flood Tide On Record. Here's Why It Wasn't News

The huge flood that didn't happen. The first test of a $6 billion
project worked: A near record storm tide in Venice, Italy
did not flood the historic city, for a change.

 Three years ago, the second highest tide on record hit  flood prone Venice, killing two people and flooding 85 percent of Venice, including St. Mark's Basilica.  

That flood was all over the headlines at the time. 

This past week, a similar tide menaced Venice, and I bet even people who closely pay attention to the news never heard about it. 

That's because Venice this time is fine. 

Here's why, according to the Washington Post:

"That's because of a $6 billion engineering project designed to protect Venice from mass flooding and the exhausting cycle of cleanup and recovery. The lagoon city's inlets are now guarded by 78 rectangular metal barrier, each the height of a five-story building, that are pumped with air and raised from the sea floor any time high waters threaten it. 

It's a landmark climate change solution, one requiring 30 years of planning and 20 years of construction, that has reduced fears of Venice turning into a modern-day Atlantis."

Venice has been inundated more frequently as climate change has raised sea levels. That makes high tides even higher, increasing flood problems in this region. Plus, the land in Venice is sinking, exacerbating the problem.

The actual protections around Venice are pretty cool. On most days, the barricades are hidden under water. Ships come and go just fine. During normal high tides without flooding salt water from the Adriatic flushes out the lagoons of Venice, so the water doesn't turn into a gross mass of algae, pollution, dangerous bugs, stink and yuckiness. 

The expensive safeguards clearly worked for Venice last week, but will that last forever?

As the Washington Post reports, the expensive engineering project that prevented a flood in Venice might not last forever. Projections call for a 30 centimeter (about a foot) rise in sea levels by mid-century. 

If that happens, the $6 billion project that project won't work anymore. At least not as well as it did last week. Of course, if emissions are cut dramatically in the next couple of decades, that would buy more time, making the system that protects Venice last a lot longer .

Venice was protected during the storminess of the past week, but not all of Italy was. 

As Al Jazeera reports, at least seven people, including a newborn and two children, were killed on Ischia island, on the south of Italy, as a landslide triggered by torrential rains hit a small town At last report, five people were still missing.

Five inches of rain poured down on the island within six hours.

Not sure if this tragedy was entire related to climate change, but storms are getting more and more extreme as time goes on. So this in consistent with global warming or weirding or whatever you want to call it.