“Mom, the water is coming” words pronounced with pure terror by my daughter Alessandra, motionless in the street, with her gaze turned towards the end of the street, her eyes wide open staring at the river which inexorably arrives, bursts into our house without asking permission, silent and devastating. A brown waterfall spills from the “wolf mouths” into the rumpus room, the dry sound of the current jumping and then the darkness, while little by little the water rises inexorably.
Frantic and frantic attempts to save as much as possible, passing it on in a chain while the memories of a lifetime are overwhelmed and destroyed, trying to keep a clear mind on what is a priority to save. The screams of my daughters who in the dark shout “enough, mum, come up”, I have the water almost behind me, fear invades me, it is necessary to let go and think about life, some floating furniture blocks my passage, the sofa is pushed the water hits me, climbing over and struggling I manage to get to the stairs, I turn around… there’s nothing left to do, there’s no way to take anything else. The three of us run upstairs.
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Sitting on the stairs, wet, resigned, shocked and incredulous, we look at our living room and kitchen at the mercy of the water. Alessandra cries, Asia, in a panic, tries to lift the entire display case containing all the memories of 20 years of travel up the stairs, she can’t think, it’s too heavy… but it’s her heart that guides her and the fear of losing even those small pieces of experience. The incessant noise of the rain does not stop all night, the flashing emergency lights, the helicopter turns continuously, we are afraid not knowing how much more the water can rise, we hear dull and chilling thuds coming from the completely flooded lower floors.
For two days we remain sheltered in the house on the first floor with our 3 cats locked in the bathroom, we have water and food but our stomach is blocked, only the desire to sleep so as not to think or see, like in a terrifying loop I wake up and every time I realize that everything is damn real! Many calls arrive from family and friends, but unfortunately it is necessary to save the batteries of the cell phones which we keep charged using portable PCs. In those two days the sense of emptiness and the fear of what could still happen are dominant, it’s a situation we never thought we’d experience!
Flood one year later, all the testimonies
The memories of a lifetime, my photos as a child, drawings and crafts from my daughters’ nursery jealously preserved, the Christmas decorations handed down from year to year, the turtles we had in the garden all missing and hopefully safe somewhere and much more …all lost, destroyed, annihilated by the mud. Mud and slime, cruel gifts left by the river, whose brown color makes anonymous everything that we slowly and painfully pile up and throw away, raising enormous mountains in front of the house… that mud that dries the skin of the hands, impregnates clothes and hair with its smell for days … that mud shoveled with shovels, collected with buckets, pushed and swept with toilet wrenches outside the house and the courtyard … that same damned slime however generates a incredible energy charge to react, stimulates a spirit of solidarity between people, creates human chains to empty and clean up, pushes us to rediscover the encouraging strength of hugs, to pat each other on the back without knowing each other and to help each other unconditionally.
Three quarters of the house destroyed, two cars scrapped, but above all completely lost memories and fragments of our lives that cannot be bought back or replaced. In parallel, the great solidarity of friends who supported, flanked, encouraged, comforted us but also that of occasional people or simple acquaintances who did their utmost and cooperated so that we could recover. In contrast, today, in order to hope to have “refreshments”, all that remains is to extricate ourselves from the heavy bureaucracy which unfortunately slows down and hinders when it is expected to facilitate but above all submerges us more than water and mud have already done…
Grazia Gordini
Forlì, via Pelacano area
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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