Wednesday 3 May 2023
I wake up with a start. I try to turn on the light but there is no power, something must have happened… Since the evening before the news regarding the flood of the Lamone was alarming but I didn’t believe it could really flood. Yet the electricity went out. I go down the stairs scared but in reality everything is fine in the house, I open the front door and everything is quiet on the street too. I turn on my phone and the images I see on WhatsApp and social media leave me terrified: there’s all hell a few hundred meters away. I quickly put on my shoes and jacket and go out, I turn the corner and find myself in front of a surreal scene, which seems to come straight out of one of those disaster films. In front of me there is an amphibious vehicle of the Fire Brigade that is plowing along via Silvio Pellico. Me I ask if I’m still sleeping and it’s just a bad nightmare or if what I’m witnessing is real.
In order not to hinder the rescue efforts, I decide, shocked, to return home. Soon I hear a sound of water, louder and louder, like it was a waterfall. Water is starting to seep into the cellar. Instinctively I decide to go down and start removing it with buckets but I understand that it is a useless battle. I let it go and helplessly watch the water continue to flow. It will stop at 70cm in height. I can’t complain, I think, given that a few meters away there are those who have lost everything. I couldn’t have known that this was just the beginning and that fifteen days later a real disaster would be knocking on my door.
Thursday 25 May 2023
Incredible, you can see the cellar floor! After eight days spent pumping out the water, which this time reached the ceiling, and yawning the mud, the last effort is truly missing. The air is unbreathable but the finish line is near and we cannot give up: next to me, in addition to a friend, I have a girl from Forlì and a boy from Udine, who suddenly appeared asking how they could help. It’s incredible what the solidarity engine can do! Come on, we’re here… the mud is almost defeated, while the sound of an alarm, every now and then, breaks the silence. These are the first two memories that come to mind when I think back to the tragic days of May 2023. What remains of the flood, a year later, now that the return home is finally approaching?
I certainly thought, perhaps unconsciously, it could all be a little simpler. Faced with the red alert issued on May 14th, I had focused on what could happen, I knew that this time the water would not be limited to partially invading the cellar but I had no idea of the consequences, especially in the medium to long term. However, the adrenaline-filled phase of clearing and cleaning the premises has passed you find yourself entangled in a web of unobtainable craftsmen, construction work that becomes more complicated every day and proceeds slowly, ordinances that follow one another and a lot of bureaucracy.
You find yourself wandering inside the house where you grew up: so gutted and bare it almost seems like it has lost its “soul” and so you have to be careful not to get lost too, not to let yourself be overcome by discouragement. Furthermore, what still embitters us after a year is hearing the State so far away and feeling, now resigned, exactly in the middle of a real political battle between right and left, with a view to the regional elections that are fast approaching. It’s a shame that those who experienced the flood would simply like to rearrange their homes, see the area made safe and move on with their lives.
Today
“The government is not an ATM”: this phrase from the minister for civil protection Nello Musumeci (who rushed to Faenza after the first flood) I experienced it as a wound. Without falling into easy populism, while people count the damage and throughout Romagna 17 victims are mourned, after the flooding of 23 waterways, by a representative of the Republic one would expect a different language, more suited to those who are going through a bad period and cannot explain so much hostility. Because if we can understand the difficulty, now chronic in Italy, in raising funds, we don’t understand why respect and empathy should be lacking.
However, it’s not all black: I think that every experience can always have also a positive lesson and the flood is no exception. To counteract the arrogance and carelessness of a certain policy in fact there was a wave of solidaritywhich allowed Faenza to get back on its feet. I would never have made it without all those people who helped me and continue to do so, materially and morally and above all without those who hosted me during this long year away from home. Solidarity, the desire to help others, kindness, proved to be fundamental. Values too often forgotten, underestimated or trampled upon, in an increasingly individualistic and materialistic society.
Never before has it become clearer than this time no one saves themselves, that we cannot afford to leave anyone behind and it is necessary to start again from human relationships. Let’s try to keep this in mind, even when the memory of the flood is a little more faded and we are finally back to normal.
Samuele Bondi
