Venice flood. Damages to the church and to the Waldensian guest house

Rome (NEV / Riforma.it), November 23, 2019 – The day after the record high tide, which has forcefully brought the topic of the protection of the Venice lagoon to the center of the news, it is the moment of counting the damages and to roll-up sleeves to work at the best to restore what’s under water.
The Waldensian church has been present in the Venetian capital with the temple and the guest house in the Castello 5170 district, in the beautiful Cavagnis palace, now for over 150 years.
From Mara Bounous, director of the Venetian guest house, we learned about the problems that have affected the structures and the people: “People are fine; the employees have been in contact via Whatsapp for most of the night and in the morning they came to work and faced the many inconveniences of a devastated city”.  As for the premises: “Inside the temple the level reached by the water was of 60 cm; overturned benches, some broken or chipped furnishings, blackout of the electrical and heating system. The Bible toppled into the water from the table of the Holy Supper”.

An appeal was launched to friends and church members to “meet and wash with fresh water, dry and repair what had been damaged in the church.  Offers will be useful to replace what cannot be saved. Now the water has flowed out and we hope that with the next tides it will not invade the place again”.
The guest house remained operative day and night welcoming numerous guests, but it also suffered a very significant total flooding in some of its spaces. “Damages in the guest house relate to 2 boilers (but 1 resists), a couple of control units, the elevator and of course the materials that were kept in storage and that were flooded despite being high up on the shelves”.
Dozens of messages of greeting, encouragement and love were received from many church members and friends of the guest house and of the Venetian Methodist and Waldensian communities. The responsibilities of the certainly catastrophic event, which put the 90% of the city under water, are to be looked for among men rather than among atmospheric accidents.