Italy: The Flooding Has Changed The Tide

Twenty-three rivers, that is, all those between Rimini and Bologna in the agriculturally key region of Emilia-Romagna, have flooded the region in the past days, due to a combination of extraordinary rains and a sea storm in the northern Adriatic Sea that pushed back river waters. Thanks to a timely red alert and civil protection mobilization, “only” 14 persons have lost their lives, while 36,000 have lost their homes (hopefully only temporarily). Farms have been devastated.

Such flooding is nothing new in the region. One was famously captured in the second movie of the Don Camillo and Peppone series. This time, however, climate zombies have insisted that it is Mother Earth’s revenge for man’s excessive industrialization.

It soon came out that the regional administration had failed to build urgent infrastructure which had not only been planned, but financed by the central government. Between 2015 and 2022, the Democratic Party-run Emilia-Romagna region received €190 million to build 23 flood retention basins; however, after eight years, only 12 work. The money was simply not spent and was given back to Rome.

Even worse for the Democratic Party, its current head, radical environmentalist Elli Schlein, has been deputy president of the Emilia-Romagna administration and directly responsible for the failure.

Now the tide – not the physical one, but the political one – is turning. More and more local officials and experts are exposing the real cause as being the lack of infrastructure. And they are finally getting coverage in the mainstream media.