The streets and sidewalks of Turin are whitewashed as if it were winter. And yet there is less than a month left until the start of summer. But what’s much worse, trees felled, underpasses and cellars flooded, car windows shattered. It is the result of the huge hailstorm that hit the city capital, so the damage count is now starting. In fact, there were dozens of interventions involving the firefighters of the Turin provincial command from yesterday afternoon until the evening. The hail created major inconveniences in particular in the neighborhoods of Borgo Vittoria, San Donato, Aurora, Madonna di Campagna, Lucento, Vallette, Royal Park and Barrier of Milan. Roads whitened by ice grains in many streets where, due to clogged drains, there were floods that prevented normal traffic for both private and public transport. Some trees fell in Lungo Dora Voghera, where parked cars were damaged by branches. Then there were several attachments in basements, but also at the entrance to the Torino-Caselle, in Corso Grosseto. The firefighters had to rescue a motorist remained stuck inside his car surrounded by high water in Piazza Borgo Dora. Similar episode inside an underpass in Villastellone, in via Borgo Nuovo.
The severe bad weather required the rapid activation of extraordinary interventions involving local police, Civil Protection and Amiat. Hundreds of calls arrived in a few hours at the operations center of the vigilantwhich I am intervened with over 30 patrols to deal with traffic delays due to fallen trees. Twenty-two men and women from the Civil Protection attended especially between Wards 6 and 7 to remove ice and hail. Four teams of two, for a total of eight people, were responsible for monitoring hilly routes and rivers. In the areas affected by accumulations of ice and steps, men and vehicles from Amiat also worked until late at night and then again from the early hours of the morning. Yesterday evening, three snowploughs with blades and mechanical shovels were in action. This morning two salt spreaders, a mechanical shovel and a vehicle with a snow clearing blade went into action together with ten workers who took care of manually spreading salt and cleaning the manholes. Two tons of salt consumed since yesterday. Finally, five Smat teams are currently working to clean the drains, in addition to the intervention in the Donat Cattin underpass, flooded. From the early afternoon, soil monitoring will be activated in the most affected neighborhoods to identify the most urgent potholes to be made safe on which the intervention teams will be activated.
