SENIGALLIA – Ten years have passed since the morning of 3 May 2014, when the Misa river, following the heavy rains of the previous days and the night, broke a large portion of the right bank, flooding various areas of Senigallia from the more internal hamlets up to the seafront, passing through the residential district of the master plan. A disaster from many points of view, primarily the human one because there were three victims; secondly the economic one, with hundreds of millions of euros of damage to families, businesses and public bodies. Since that day nothing has been the same as before. Eight years after the flood of September 2022, with an even worse toll.
«In my opinion there is no comparison between the two events – explains the current mayor of Senigallia, Massimo Olivetti, who in 2014 was mayor of Ostra, a town also affected by the two flood events – because the second was much more violent and with more serious consequences, moreover in a larger territory. With the anomaly that here in Senigallia we didn’t see any bad weather but only an enormous mass of water that flooded everything.” There were different methods: «in 2014 there was a break in a section of the embankment, in 2022 it overflowed in various points of the valley; the previous time there had been rainy days before the flood, this time there was a bolt from the blue, which is perhaps more worrying.”
The technical issues are still to be resolved: many works years later had to be completely redone, such as the strengthening of the banks of the Misa and Nevola rivers, while some interventions were never started or completed. Like expansion tanks. The only one being worked on hasn’t seen a bulldozer for months. Which does not reassure the population: the protest of those asking for effective and rapid work to increase the level of security in the area is spreading. In addition to anger, there is also a lot of resignation on the part of the community and mistrust.
«As for ascertaining responsibilities. The trial on the 2014 flood has practically yet to begin, but in the meantime some crimes have become statute barred. We moved from Ancona to L’Aquila because a member of the criminal court of Ancona was a citizen who had also been affected by the floods – says Corrado Canafoglia, lawyer for the coordination of the committees of flood victims – We practically started all over again for the first time, with the preliminary hearing and then before the court only to realize that there had been an oversight in the formulation of the new charge. Some crimes have fallen into statute of limitations – adds the lawyer – only negligent flooding remains. Now we return to the preliminary hearing judge in L’Aquila for the reformulation of the charge with a new hearing set for next May 28th and to start the trial”.
The only fixed point that remains for the flood victims, for the moment, is the recognition of the civil liability of a whole series of entities in the event of a conviction, ranging from the Municipality of Senigallia to the Province of Ancona, from the Marche Region to the Ministry of the Interior and up to to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers: «The entire civil protection chain is under accusation – adds the lawyer – a result that has not been achieved even for the tragedies of the Genoa bridge or the Rigopiano hotel so to speak». Thus the procedure for mediation with the insurance companies of the entities involved was started, given that at the time the amounts allocated to the flood victims “were only sums paid out as tax credits”.
Meanwhile, the Municipality of Senigallia has displayed the flags of the town hall in Piazza Roma at half-mast. Some parishes will celebrate today, tomorrow and Sunday, masses in memory of the tragedy, while the municipal administration will always place a bouquet of flowers at the point of failure of the embankment of the Misa river which then overflowed, flooding half the city.
