Posted on 11/13/2016 5:16:00 AM PST by Kaslin
Do I remember it? We were in it!
It was before the Arno burst its banks and drowned Florence, but it had been raining hard and continuously for many days. Having "done" Firenze, we were driving south at 6:00 A.M., out of Sienna, headed for Rome to rendezvous with our friend. The autostrada was not completed, so we were on the local road, cutting through the hillsides. The road went down the hillside, made a hairpin bend, and cut up the other side of the ridge. I slowed for the curve but didn't realize it was under several inches of water. I had never heard of dynamic hydroplaning.
The car, a Fiat 1500 four-door sedan, became unresponsive, as if on glare ice. As we sailed off the road, with the tops of the trees in the headlights, I made the canonical exclamation (no it wasn't "Oh, fiddlesticks!"). It sailed silently toward a meadow, and we landed nose first on the downslope, bounced gracefully into the air, and turned over to land flat on the roof. We bounced again and rolled side over side and came to a stop with the car on its wheels. Ann was crying, and I tried to open my door to get around to her side to get her out, and I discovered I couldn't move my left arm without severe pain. I wasn't able to open the door with my right hand. Both rear doors had sprung open, and our belongings, including a couple of rolls of unspooling toilet paper, were strewn down the hillside. Very slowly and very carefully, I maneuvered into the back seat and out the open door. I wasn't able to open her door, so I squatted down next to it and made reassuring noises.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The writer is relating his experiences from 1966 when the R.Arno flooded much of Florence. He was, from the story, in the US Army at the time.
I was in Florence in July, 1966, and the weather was sunny and hot. I have also been on that road where the accident took place.
Famous incident. Did great damage to the remarkable museums.
I have tried to envision the devastation when I’ve been in Firenze. Many youths came to help with the cleanup after the flood subsided.
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