An hour of fear and worry yesterday around 3pm throughout the province due to the passage of a wave of bad weather that brought rain and heavy hail. In the areas directly affected by the flood of a year ago, the memory of those tragic events and the fear of having to deal with a similar experience have returned. In several areas of Cesena and Forlì, but also in the centers of the province, the sewage system went haywire under the pressure of the significant amount of rain discharged. But there was no shortage of controversy and accusations of poor maintenance of the manholes, which would have caused flooding of the streets and underpasses. The water penetrated into some homes on the lower floors and into the basements.
The firefighters of the provincial command of Forlì report having carried out around a hundred interventions, mainly concerning flooding of underpasses, trees fallen on the road, unstable electricity and telephone line poles, flooding of basements and unsafe curtains outside buildings. A tree fell on the street in Ponte Pietra, as reported by the police, but fortunately here too there were no consequences for things or people. There were some inconveniences in different areas of the city, with around 10 millimeters of water for an hour in the secant underpass. Between 25 and 30 millimeters in the Fiera area, the Bufalini hospital and the Basilica del Monte and in other areas between 10-15 millimetres. Luckily then the outburst of rain, hail and wind passed and everything calmed down relatively.
Alice Buonguerrieri, deputy and provincial president of Fratelli d’Italia commented: “One year after the flood, with the first rains lasting a few dozen minutes, Cesena is still under water. Bonaccini, Lattuca and all the comrades, instead spend time and energy attacking the Meloni Government on a daily basis, which has allocated resources to secure the territory, what are they waiting for to do the work they are responsible for to avoid new flooding?”. The candidate Mauro Mazzotti asks for a report from Hera on the state of the sewers, reporting flooding in via Fermi and via Farini.
But in the meantime in Forlì the damage and inconveniences were even greater, with a part of the historic center literally ending up under water with blocked manholes. Two cars submerged in the underpass of via Bertini. Ring road interrupted due to flooding of the underpasses of Viale Roma and Airport.
Guglielmo Garagnani, FdI candidate for the European elections, highlights the damage to agriculture: orchards ruined by ice grains, vegetables submerged by water and cereals swept by strong winds. “We need to allocate more resources to crop protection and a real reform of risk management in agriculture.”
