The intense, persistent and widespread rainfall that occurred between yesterday evening and today led to the sudden increase in the levels of many Emilian waterways in the Aipo network, in particular Arda, Chiavenna, Stirone, Baganza, Parma , Enza, Crostolo, Secchia and Panaro and other minor watercourses, with criticality threshold 3 (high, red) being exceeded on Arda, Enza, Crostolo and Secchia and threshold 2 (orange, moderate) being exceeded in the others rivers.
AIPo staff have been active on full 24-hour duty since yesterday evening for supervision, monitoring and possible emergency intervention on the hydraulic works under their jurisdiction, in close coordination with the bodies forming part of the local and regional civil protection systems.
Maneuvers were carried out by AIPo on the gates of the Parma torrent’s expansion tank to regulate the flow rate exiting the regulating structure (70 and, later, 90 cubic meters exiting the tank), thus retaining a substantial part of the flood inside of the case itself.
The expansion tanks of Enza, Crostolo, Secchia and Panaro also came into operation, filling part of the flood waters in the retention basins and thus reducing the flow downstream.
In Villanova (PC), on the Arda river, affected by the overflow of the Mignano Dam, urgent interventions were carried out by AIPo personnel with sheeting of the banks and positioning of temporary raising materials for them.
AIPo staff remain active 24 hours a day for the duration of critical events and until they are exhausted.
30 men from the reclamation consortium are also at work
There are as many as 30 personnel units from the Parma Reclamation Department operating 24 hours a day from midnight on Monday 24 June to manage the bad weather emergency which is affecting our territory with localized and highly intense thunderstorms.
In the twenty-four hours between Monday 24th and Tuesday 25th June, in fact, the rainfall progressively intensified in all the areas of the Parma area: in this period of time the average rainfall in Val Parma was 110 mm; same quantity also in Val Baganza, while the highest value was recorded in Val d’Enza (130 mm on average, with peaks of up to 160 mm); the average in Val Taro was relatively lower, standing at 100 mm.
In light of the hydro-meteo-climatic picture given by torrential rains, often of a thunderstorm nature, which can favor the raising of the levels of the watercourses even in a rather sudden manner (above all the Enza torrent which, in the territory of Sorbolo Mezzani , reached 11.75 meters in the early hours of Tuesday 25 June, and then remained stable at similar values, slightly decreasing) the personnel on duty of the Parma Reclamation carried out, on the evening of Monday 24 June, the closure of the sewers reclamation relating to the major network (i.e. the closure of all those consortium canals connected to natural watercourses) to avoid any backflow into the consortium network and arranged for the activation of the Foce Abbeveratoia plant, in the territory of the City of Parma, as confirmed the general director of the Parma Reclamation, Fabrizio Useri: “At 11pm on Monday 24 June, after their activation, the drainage pumps of Foce Abbeveratoia alone had ‘lifted’ a quantity of water equal to 9000 litres/second, avoiding, in fact, that this could reach a vast portion of the city of Parma”.
Furthermore, from the morning of Tuesday 25 June, the Consortium also activated the Travacone and Chiavica Rossa plants, in the Municipality of Colorno, to protect the territories of the Bassa. “In the first 8 hours of operation of the three active plants we raised a total flow rate of 450 million liters of water falling between the territories of Parma and Colorno – added Useri -. The situation of the reclamation roads is currently under control, for which the monitoring of our technicians has not detected any reports of possible landslides or mudslides”.
