After Tuesday morning’s whirlwind in Rovigo, another storm front in the evening involved the Castelfranco Veneto area where the Avenale flooded and passes through the center of the town. In total there were over 210 requests for help from the firefighters, of which 140 in the Treviso town alone. In the province they were affected by the strong storm also the municipalities of Resana, Riese, Castello di Godego where there were flooding in streets and basements, unsafe trees and obstacles in the middle of the roadways. In the In Vicenza there were about twenty interventions also along the stretches between Marostica, Bassano del Grappa, Mussolente and on the Asiago plateau. Problems in Venetian in the city as well as in Mestre and Mira.
The budget in Rovigo
In Rovigo, where at 11.15 on Tuesday morning just a few minutes were enough to unleash the hell of the return with the clouds that suddenly formed a threatening vortex, sweeping away roofs of houses and sheds, the work continued all night. The violent whirlwind brought the area to its knees, sending the capital into a tailspin to quickly move towards the hamlets of Boara Polesine, Cantonazzo, Granzette and finally to Lusia, Lendinara and Badia Polesine. Hit by a violent downpour and gusts of wind also Adria, Cavarzere and, in the Padua area, Vescovana and Stanghella. In Rovigo, the Aliper shopping center in via Porta Adige suffered the worst, having been hit straight through by the whirlwind which swept away everything it encountered on its way, even causing one injury: a woman who was in the supermarket parking lot she was hit by a piece of cover flying off the roof and rescued by Suem paramedics. A customer of the internal bar instead saw the roof collapse on her head while she was having a coffee at the counter, managing to save herself in extremis.
Flooded underpasses
«In a few seconds all hell broke loose – a clerk tells – we heard a very loud noise, it sounded like a bomb. The people outside with the trolley ran in, abandoning their shopping in the square.” The strong wind he even moved the cars in the parking lot where around thirty vehicles were hit by the metal sheets of the roof of the commercial business in front of the supermarket, which was also heavily hit by the tornado. «The roof of the shop was sucked in by the vortex of wind – rsays one of the owners of the Lo Scampolo fabric shop Federico Antonioni in tears -, the rain began to come in continuously from the roof, wetting all the goods. Enormous damage: at least 500 thousand euros». The situation in the historic center is also serious, with underpasses, streets, courtyards and dozens of homes flooded. A woman who was trapped in her car in the underpass of via Femi she was brought to safety by the carabinieri. Instead it was a local police officer who rescued a bus driver stuck in the underpass in via Marabinwhere a pool of about one and a half meters had formed.
Asphalt failures
More than 220 requests for help arrived to the firefighters in a few hours from all over the province. Dozens of interventions were also made by the patrols deployed by the mobile radio unit and from local stations, including the rescue of a motorist victim of an accident caused by aquaplaning on the Traspolesana. The heavy rain that fell in a few minutes caused also several asphalt failures and ditch overflows. The basement of the State Archives and the bus depot in front of the train station also ended up flooded in Rovigo. The new mayor Valeria Cittadin who, less than 24 hours before the ballot, found herself managing the emergency exception, signed her first ordinance ordering, for Wednesday, the closure of the Gianni Rodari nursery school, in via Galliani, due to the expansion of the courtyard. «I am trying to respond to all requests for help from citizens – she explained, arriving in via Porta Adige for an inspection of the businesses affected by the tornado – I have received more than 300 messages and the emergencies are countless. In the center, trees fell on top of cars and dozens of houses and shops were flooded. One of the priorities is certainly the cleaning of manholes and drains, we cannot stop the bad weather but we can prevent greater damage.” In the evening the President of the Region Luca Zaia announced that he had asked the state of calamity due to the bad weather that hit the Veneto, inviting citizens to make a precise count of the damage suffered.
