On Monday 17 June, from approximately 11.30 am, the air-naval search and rescue exercise will take place in the waters in front of the lakeside of Lesa (NO)LAKESARX 2024“, organized and directed by the Coast Guard, which will simulate the rescue of a passenger transport ship with a fire on board. The initiative is part of the annual training program for Coast Guard personnel, but is also intended to be an opportunity to celebrate the first birthday of the Lake Maggiore Coast Guard Naval Vessels Unit, which just one year ago settled permanently in Lesa at the helm of the 1st Lieutenant Sebastiano Valenti.
The exercise has the main purpose of testing the effectiveness of the collaboration between the various authorities, bodies and associations that in various capacities contribute to the lake search and rescue activity, which the Coast Guard has the task of directing and coordinating. In addition to the Lesa Coast Guard, the Fire Brigade of Novara, Verbania and Varese, the Cannobio Financial Police, the 118 Service, the Italian Red Cross of Verbania, Arona and Lesa, the Auxiliary Coast Guard, will participate in the event. the Verbania Nautical Rescue Team, the SOGIT Association, as well as the Arona Lakes Government Management which will make the motor vessel “TOPAZIO” availablewith the involvement of 15 naval vessels, a Coast Guard helicopter, two ambulances, a first aid point on land and the overall use of over 60 people including crews, aquatic rescuers, healthcare personnel and helpers.
The various phases of the exercise simulation will be documented in real time by a drone of the Fire Brigade of the Piedmont SAPR Unit of Turin with the indirect vision of the images on a screen on the ground. “With this exercise we will measure the cooperation and operational response capacity of the complex and articulated emergency device that safeguards the safety of users of Lake Maggiore – explains the Frigate Captain Riccardo Cavarra, responsible for external relations of the Lake Maggiore Coast Guard Unit – therefore not only the Coast Guard, Fire Brigade, Guardia di Finanza, Police and Carabinieri, but also the various associations and volunteers who carry out activities on Lake Maggiore with great professionalism and civic commitment a truly important role in the operational response to lake emergencies. We will therefore see various naval vessels and rescue units in action, each with a specific role aimed at a single common objective: to deal with the emergency quickly and effectively.” The exercise will be preceded, at approximately 10 am, by a conference presenting the data relating to the first 12 months of continuous activity of the Lago Maggiore Coast Guard Naval Vessels Unit – hosted in the council chamber of the Municipality of Lesa – in which various local administrators and Civil and military authorities, with the intervention of the Maritime Director of Liguria Admiral Inspector Piero Pellizzari, on whom the Lake Maggiore Coast Guard Unit functionally depends.
“They have been a very challenging and significant 12 months, which have confirmed once again how frequent and subtle the dangers that this extraordinary body of water can hold are – comments Commander Cavarra – and how necessary it therefore proves to be the presence of the Coast Guard also on Lake Maggiore, far from the sea but close to the same needs and critical issues. A year that saw us engaged in numerous rescue operations – he continues – but also in intense preventive activity, which we carried out by monitoring the safety of navigation and through initiatives to raise awareness of nautical culture and safety in the water, promoting ever greater knowledge and awareness of the rules and behaviors that must guide all those who want to experience the lake with serenity and maximum safety.”
