Recent Natural Disasters

October 29, 2011

Recent Natural Disasters

The last 2 weeks have brought an onslaught of disasters here in Northern Italy. There were intense monsoon like rains pounding the costs for a few days, it was impossible to go out and I finished reading 2 books in a few days. The cats seemed to like the racket and I didn't think much else would happen. I thought it was only Northern Italy being crazy and extreme making up her mind on the season "Is it Summer or Winter?!" Gelato or Cappuccino? T-shirt or wool coat? The weather here is worse than a 15 year old girl making up her mind on anything. It changes every couple of hours in extremes. So I thought that all was well. All was not well.

The coast that we love so much in Liguria got completely destroyed. When I say completely I mean 6 feet deep in mud, landslides, rivers of floating cars and destroyed homes. I feel sad for the place called Cinque Terre, in Liguria that was hit the worst. These little towns are miniature, isolated, accessible through one small mountain road and impossible to get out of in case of an emergency. They are in a bad spot if anything bad like this were to happen. The other thing is that they are not only badly equip but a hot spot for tourists. It is like going to Disney World and driving on a one lane mountain road to get there, once you are there everyone is fighting for parking, prices are high, lemonades cost too much but it is a sunny happy place where everyone smiles and takes pictures. That place is gone. Cinque Terre is not Disney World. Mickey Mouse has more protection than these historic little places. Cinque Terre is like an exploited destination. Yes they make money from tourism, yes it is in an "ideal" location. But lets face it, anyone living there is highly disadvantaged if they were to need emergency help. Multiply that by the residents that live there.

It irritates me that it rained hard, that the roads were bad, that Prime Minister Berlusconi grins and scratches his head instead of turning up his sleeves, pulling on some work boots and taking his helicopter there to tell the people that they will get help, that they will be ok. I wish he would take some high blood pressure medicine and face the reality of what is happening for so many things: unemployment of young people, the real reason there were riots in Rome last week, ways to improve the infrastructure of highways going to these isolated regions.

What happened in Cinque Terre reminds me so much of Gee's Bend in Alabama. Gees Bend is a wonderful tiny isolated place on a peninsula where one road runs. That road wasn't paved till the late 1960's thus preventing thousands of people from studying and voting. However, Gee's Bend was discovered because the bright women there made some fantastic quilts: nontraditional, big blocks, fascinating. The quilts were compared to Matisse paintings. But...no one cared about the people. The same here....it seems to me that no one cares about the people. I wish they (the government) would send the Coast Guard or equivalent to get the residents to a dry, safe place where they have access to clean water and food.

Vernazza

This morning I woke up with an earthquake shaking our bed and the sound of Bentley and Fatty crying. It made me that much more aware of how fast and easily we could all disappear from the map if the powers of nature take over. One second you could be sleeping, watching the computer screen with dread at your 401(k) drop, driving to karate or browsing the internet, and the next minute it could shake, rain too hard and all be over....scary.

Anyway, here are my favorite pictures of Cinque Terre, I sincerly hope it gets back on its feet.