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The name of the 1954 hurricane was Carol.
It killed 19 people, wiped out 4,000 houses, flooded Providence − and left a 6-year-old Providence girl with a sense of awe.”My grandmother bought a little book that The Providence Journal put out for a dollar,” recalls Joyce Acciaioli Rudge, who would keep the book as a lifelong possession. “I looked at those pictures all my life and I always wanted to do something with them.”
The decades-old photos of inundation were a focal point on Friday when Acciailoi Rudge and local officials teamed up to publicize a city-wide festival that will run next month from Nov. 9 through Nov. 17.
A new take on a popular Florence-focused festival event
The event dreamed up by Acciaioli Rudge is a different version of other “Splendor of Florence” festivals that she brought to Providence in 1999 and to Philadelphia and New York after that.
The retooled event remains, in large part, a celebration of Florentine culture and influence in Providence. The festival promises a wide offering of musical harmony, culinary flavor and artistic color.
It’s also billed as yet another demonstration of the friendship between Providence and the Italian city, which has been documented in a written agreement. This time around though, Acciaioli Rudge has set out to bring attention to another matter: climate change.
She says she hopes the art, photography, music and film at next month’s festival can “even motivate action.” And this is where those old flooding photos become relevant.
Both the splendor and the flooding of Florence
Long after her days as a 6-year-old in Providence’s Charles neighborhood, Acciaioli Rudge’s path took her to Europe and Florence. There, she became familiar with photos taken by a famous Life Magazine photographer, David Lees, during the severe flood that devastated Florence in 1966.
“When I saw these photographs of David Lees and the city of Florence underwater, I thought this could be an incredible show,” she says.
“Sott’ Acqua: A Tale of Two Cities Underwater” is the name of the photo exhibition that will open in Providence on Nov. 9.
It features Lees’ photos from 1966 as well as photos taken by staff of the Providence Journal-Bulletin in 1954.
At the time, it was quite rare for the newspaper to publish photographers’ names under their photos, says Michael Delaney, a former Providence Journal editor who helped Acciaioli Rudge with the exhibition.
“I don’t know who shot them,” Delaney says.
Flooding and climate change
The exhibition of flooding photos will be in the pavilion at Grace Church.
Flooding is regarded as one of the many consequences of climate change.
The exhibition, says Acciaioli Rudge, explains “in photos, which is always the best way to explain it to people, what happened and why we have to avoid it happening again.”
On Friday morning, some of the photos hung behind a podium in the atrium and lobby of 100 Westminster Street.
There Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo, the Consul General of of Italy, Arnaldo Minuti, and others talked about the significance of the festival and climate change, too.
Smiley calls next month’s event the “crown jewel” of the coming season for the city and an opportunity to spotlight the fervent interest in art, culture and history that both Providence and Florence share. Flooding is another common interest, he says.
Smiley knows flooding is a key issue for the city’s future
Smiley recalls that some of his predecessors “lived or died” based on how the city managed snowstorms under their leadership.
“Many have heard me say this before,” Smiley says. “Rain is the new snow. For me, I get judged on how we respond to flooding and not to plowing.”
“Last summer,” he adds, “we had more traumatic flooding than we’ve ever had in the city’s history and so the climate change crisis is real. Rhode Island is a coastal community. And … any community that does not learn from its history is doomed to repeat it.”