Sott’ Acqua: A Tale of Two Cities – Panel Discussion – Climate Science and Climate Action in the Aftermath of Two Natural Disasters

On the morning of November 4, 1966, Florence, one of the world’s most historic cities and the repository of some of its greatest art, was struck by a monumental disaster. A low-pressure system had been stalled over Italy for six weeks and on the previous day it had begun to rain again. Nineteen inches fell in twenty-four hours, more than half of the annual total. By two o’clock in the morning twenty thousand cubic feet of water per second was moving toward Florence. Cellars, vaults, and strong-rooms in the famous museums of the city were filling with mud as the water moved at forty miles per hour at a height of twenty-four feet. Dozens of lives were lost, great works of art destroyed, and a million antiquarian books in the low-lying Biblioteca Nazionale were submerged. On the morning of August 31, 1954, an ugly storm with the pretty name of Carol brought the summer in Rhode Island to an abrupt halt. The hurricane arrived at breakneck speed and departed just as quickly, leaving 19 dead, many injured and the entire state devastated. Property damage was over $200 million, nearly 4000 homes either disappeared or lay in tatters, and more than 2000 boats were destroyed or seriously damaged. The storm surge, driven by 90 mph winds with gusts of up to 105 mph, gushed into the heart of Providence, and downtown was under 12 feet of water for the remainder of that terrible day. Two cities on opposite sides of the Atlantic as well as the cultural spectrum. Two cities struck by natural disasters which left each of them underwater in the last century. Two cities marking the signing of a 25-year-old Friendship Pact. From November 9-17, Splendor of Florence will present Sott’ Acqua: A Tale of Two Cities (https://splendorofflorence.com/) which will commemorate and celebrate both cities with a series of programs and events in Providence that will use the arts to engage the public in meaningful dialogue about climate change and its impact on our communities. As part of this important commemoration and in partnership with the Department of Italian Studies and the Office of Global Engagement, Brown University is hosting a two-part event – a film screening on November 13 (https://events.brown.edu/oge/event/295792-sott-acqua-a-tale-of-two-cities-film-screen) and roundtable panel discussion on November 14, 2024. November 14 – Panel Discussion: Under Water, A Tale of Two Cities. Climate Science and Climate Action in the Aftermath of Two Natural Disasters This panel will focus on climate change, through a conversation among scholars and community representatives from both Florence and Providence, linking global and local, scientific and humanistic perspectives about issues of flood vulnerability, infrastructure preservation, protection of the artistic and cultural patrimony, climate action, education, justice and community resilience.Moderated byCornelia Dean (https://www.nytimes.com/by/cornelia-dean) (class of ’69), a science writer and former Science Editor of The New York Times, author of “Making Sense of Science” (Harvard University Press).PanelistsApril Brown (https://sites.google.com/rejc401.com/rejc401/about-us), Organizational Steward, Racial and Environmental Justice CommitteeEnrica Caporali (https://cercachi.unifi.it/p-doc2-0-0-A-3f2a3d3035282f.html), Professor of Hydrology and Hydraulic Structures, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICEA), Coordinator of the Master’s degree in Geoengineering, the University of Florence; Chair Associate, UNESCO Prevention and Sustainable Management of Geo-Hydrological Hazards initiativeManuel Cordero (https://www.designcivic.com/manuelcordero), Founder and Principal at CIVIC, a licensed architect in Rhode IslandEmanuele Di Lorenzo (https://vivo.brown.edu/display/ediloren), Professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Brown University; Chairman and Co-founder of Ocean Visions (https://www.ocean.brown.edu/); Special Advisor to the President on ocean and climate solutions at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.Macarena Gomez-Barris (https://vivo.brown.edu/display/mgomezba), Timothy C. Forbes and Anne S. Harrison University Professor of Modern Culture and Media, Chair of Modern Culture and Media, Director of the Center for Environmental Humanities at the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Brown UniversityKyle McElroy (https://web.uri.edu/macrl/kyle-mcelroy-phd-candidate/), Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marine Affairs, University of Rhode Island.