Flood-weary Venice puts ‘Moses’ inflatable barriers to test

ROME — Venice has conducted a trial run of an ambitious anti-flood system of 78 inflatable barriers in hopes of protecting the lagoon city from devastating high tides. Premier Giuseppe Conte on Friday at a ceremony in Venice pressed a button that activated compressors to pump air into the bright yellow barriers, which then started rising from the sea to act as a kind of a dike-on-demand. On Friday, some of them rode in small boats near the test site and waved protest banners, while police in speedboats cut swift paths among the protesters’ boats as tensions flared. The protesters contend that because the world’s sea levels are rising in general, the movable barrier system will become obsolete as the Adriatic Sea’s level eventually rises to the point that waters will be higher than what the barriers were designed to hold back.