A vicious storm burst through the city of Florence, Italy, on Saturday evening, flooding home basements and felling hundreds of trees. The aftermath provides a scene reminiscent of 1966, when volunteers referred to as "mud angels" flocked to the city to help clean up after severe flooding. Once again, the city has been greatly damaged -- and once again, volunteers have stepped in to do much of the heavy lifting.
Many people -- including some immigrants waiting for asylum -- rushed to the aid of local firemen and forest rangers to rescue the city.
"In Lungarno Aldo Moro, two teams of immigrants helped us clean up our streets and sidewalks," Florence Mayor Dario Nardella tweeted on Monday morning as he inspected the state of the Tuscan city. In a period of about 45 minutes, a month's worth of rain and about 60,000 lightning strikes descended on the city, Italian news agency Ansa reports. More than 300 trees were felled, and many homes lost power.
Enrico Rossi, the president of Tuscany, has signed a state of emergency declaration, and has stayed in close contact with Italian national authorities to secure quick financing that would pay for repairing damages to the city.
Rossi wrote on Facebook about the damage the storm caused:
"No one can possibly deny that climate change caused by greenhouse gases is real, and the damages that it causes, especially in poor and disadvantaged countries -- but also here in Europe -- is considerable. Here in Italy and Tuscany, we regularly see meteorological events that, until recently, were considered extraordinary. But now, intense thunderstorms, extremely strong winds, extremely high temperatures are par for the course. The consequences are destructive, and citizens are stunned, afraid and very angry with local governments."
As municipal forces work together to clean up the city and remove the detritus the storm left in its wake, the help of volunteers has proved fundamental. In addition to the immigrants working in Lungarno Aldo Moro, Nardella has stated that the group Angeli del Bello -- urban volunteers committed to protecting and cleaning the city -- has started collecting funds to buy new plants and trees for the Parco dell'Albereta, one of the most heavily damaged locations in Florence, and where winds knocked over the greatest number of trees.
"Our emergency services have worked all weekend long, and are still working right now. All our water, electricity and light networks are up and running again," Nardella said after the storm. "I also want to thank the forest services, who were working this morning alongside the Civil Protection corps and the firemen to recover Lungarno Colombo boulevard, the last stretch of road that was still blocked." This article originally appeared on HuffPost Italy and was translated into English.