It was May 16th, Tuesday and it had been raining continuously for days. In the afternoon some colleagues leave before 5pm to go home worried about a possible landslide near the houses where their parents or animals lived, but there was no serious dangerous situation in the office. My daughter was at the end of her pregnancy (due on May 20th) and this was my only thought, so at 5pm I too went out to go to the Romiti to get some bags of sand (thinking of Lucio Dalla’s song) and take them to his house in San Martino because they live on the ground floor and the garden could no longer absorb the water.
There he was in the company of his father who would only leave when his companion arrived. I return home more calmly and to Via Isonzo where I live, I see the river now at its limit, but stupidly I don’t realize the real danger and I go home, parking the car in the garage to protect it from the water. The car hadn’t spent a night in the garage for years and it was a big mistake. The neighbors, not seeing the car, thought I wasn’t at home and therefore didn’t warn me that the river was about to overflow. Only later, looking out the window, do I understand that everything is different, I look out onto the balcony and by then it’s too late. The road is a flowing river, the car is submerged and within a short time the power goes out and the cell phone line cuts out. In the condominium we are all on the stairs checking the water which little by little covers the steps, more and more steps.
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Now I’m scared, I’m alone, in the dark and I no longer have a car. I don’t know what will happen and for 2 days I can’t know anything about my daughter and my elderly mother. The television doesn’t work and I don’t know what’s happening. We know much of everything that happened then. The dead, the mud that seemed to never go away, the desperation of the people who had to abandon their home and so much of what they lost. My in-laws are among the most damaged by the flood, their house is at the bottom of the slope next to Aldi. Finally on Thursday evening the technicians managed to reconnect the power and I had the light again which was no longer a given. We start shoveling with the help of many volunteers to remind us that there are many better people around than those we see on television every day.
Flood one year later, all the testimonies
On Saturday evening my daughter goes to hospital, I no longer have the car, I ask my friend to accompany me, I feel that I have to stay there. I’m no use to anyone but I want my daughter to know that I’m there. The whole night passes and at dawn Diego is born, a spectacle. Everything went well, the baby is fine, the mother too and the father is jumping for joy. I go home, shout joy at my neighbors and start shoveling again. Life is strange, on the very day my grandson is born I am forced to throw away my daughter’s toys that were in the garage and that I had kept for 28 years. Thank you Diego, you gave us the light and strength to hope.
Maria Lucia Saccone
FLOOD, LEST WE FORGET
On May 16, 2023, Romagna found itself in the drama of the flood within a few hours. ForlìToday collects and publishes readers’ memories and testimonies about what happened in those days. The aim is to build and keep alive the collective memory of those facts.
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