CASTELFRANCO (TREVISO) – There is no (meteorological) peace for the city of Giorgione. A little more than a month after the terrible storm that hit Castelfranco Veneto last May 16th, hitting the hamlet of Bella Venezia and the historic center particularly hard, fear is returning to the city. The violent rains that fell this evening, June 25, on Castellana, combined with a strong wind that whipped trees and plants, caused the streams north of Castelfranco to swell. And while the limit of the Muson did not cause particular concern (at 9pm the level was 1.5 metres), the situation of the Avenale was very different, which had already caused so much damage on 16 May. Piazza Giorgione was also flooded.
Bad weather, the Avenale floods
The torrent, which crosses the entire urban fabric longitudinally, saw its flow rate rapidly swell, until it overflowed again just before 9pm, along via Avenale, in correspondence with Ipsia Galilei, then crossing the bridge of via San Pio and flooding the whole street up to Piazza Giorgione. At 8.30pm over 67 milliliters of rain was falling and at the same time the Arpav station recorded a peak of 2.10 meters in the Avenale: if it is not a historical record, it is very close. No red alert had been issued in the afternoon: the bulletin of the Civil Protection of the Veneto Region indicated at 2pm for the basins involving Castelfranco a green hydraulic criticality (the lowest) and yellow as regards the hydrogeological one due to storms, although the same warning predicted «probable locally intense phenomena (heavy showers, strong gusts of wind, local hailstorms) especially between the Pre-Alps and the plains, with even significant quantities of rain». Only at 9.45pm was the message activating the passive defenses issued. In fact, many had not yet dismantled the supply of sandbags and flood gates prepared for the risk of flooding on Tuesday 21 May.
