Emilia Romagna one year later, the voice of the flood victims of Faenza

On the night between 16 and 17 May 2023, part of Romagna was overwhelmed by water and mud, costing the lives of 16 people and causing 23 thousand people to be displaced. Twelve months later there is still a lot of damage and there are those who are still waiting for the first money. Three stories

“My home was on the ground floor. In the night between 16 and 17 May 2023 I lost everything.” The voice is that of Paola, from Faenza who in 2018 decided to move to the countryside in a small portion of a farmhouse complex, a choice linked to low economic availability. Little by little she had managed to buy everything she needed, the new kitchen, the appliances. Then in an instant the invasion of water, 1.80 meters high, which destroyed everything, to leave room the next morning for 40 centimeters of slime that would never go away. “I spent the whole night standing in front of the window: I will always remember the continuous roar that came from that rushing river”. Until at a certain point, she says, “all the lights went out, because the meters ended up soaking and from that moment on the roar of the river was even more impressive”. She only had a battery with her and a dead cell phone, after the continuous exchange of messages with her three children who live in three different areas, and the anxiety for them, which she remembers, “was a thousand”. Once the night was over, in the morning there was only mud. Then a desperate journey to their homes, but she remembers, “the roads were closed”.

Thanks to the Municipality, Paola was put in contact with a lady who offered refuge near her area: “I felt like I was receiving a great gift,” she says. She then signed up to Facebook where many people offered what they had to the displaced. “I went to Cervia to get an ironing board, to Lugo to get a coat hanger, to Rimini a small armchair and a sofa bed. “In the faces of those people I found a great joy in giving, which I will never forget.” As regards the economic aid, she explains, the first 3000 euros arrived at the end of the summer and the remaining 2000 just before the winter. In the meantime she bought back the furniture, taking out a mortgage. “Today I’m still waiting to finish the work, my house is still without doors. But the joke”, she says, “is that we still have the open banks of the river behind the house and no one is taking care of it: the Municipality is passing the buck on the Region which in turn does so with the commissioner’s authority”.

The music school destroyed by mud

Mattia Lucatini is the director of the Artistation School of Arts, a music historian in Faenza which last May suffered both floods, the first on May 2nd and the one on the 17th. “I had bought the warehouse at the beginning of April, after 10 years for rent. Twenty-five days later it was devastated by two and a half meters of water the first time, five the second time.” Mattia remembers that on the morning of May 16, before the disaster, the ditches looked like rivers. “I had set the alarm every 10 minutes to check the water level.” His house, near the municipality of Modigliana, was saved. While nothing remains of the music school, apart from the music stands and iron objects. All the instruments were destroyed, the stage was floating. “It was like being in a movie. I spent the first month shoveling mud. Morale was at the bottom,” he recalls. For the reconstruction of the school, 500 thousand euros are needed, of which 150 for musical instruments. “The value of the pianos alone reached 100 thousand euros. The mud made them unsalvageable.” Luckily, a solidarity competition was immediately launched to buy back the instruments through crowdfunding: “A dozen pianos were donated to us”, he said. “We were helped by hundreds of people, we organized musical events to raise funds and we obtained around 100 thousand euros”. One year later, the work to be done is still enormous and charity is not enough. “We are trying to understand how to find money for refunds, because the money must be paid up front, but what if you don’t have it? I will have to go into debt,” says Mattia. “We have received nothing from the State”. On the positive side, the school’s activity continued, and the teachers did not lose their jobs: “We were able to continue lessons in a middle school in the afternoon. And we they made the basement of a parish available for drum lessons.” The city supported his music school. “We have had the support of many students and their families who have not abandoned us: the number of students is the same same as last year, even though the school no longer exists, and this is wonderful for us.”

The blocked jobs and the fear of returning home

Lorenzo, 33, after several years in Modena, returned to his city, Faenza, in the summer of 2022 to be close to his family after a health problem. She lived with his partnerfrom a few monthsin via Fratelli Bandiera, one of the areas most affected by the flood. “On the morning of May 16th we decided to leave because the river level was very high, but we couldn’t imagine what we would see. We only brought with us a suitcase with the bare essentials, planning to stay away for a night or two. Instead we never returned to that house,” he says. The embankment of the Lamone river broke right in Via Fratelli Bandiera. “In the following days we returned there to save what could be saved. But the water, 1.80 meters high, destroyed everything. Many friends and relatives helped us. Without them I don’t know what we would have done.” A year after that trauma, however, things are not going well: “We haven’t gone back to living in our apartment for more than one reason”, explains Lorenzo. “There are many restoration works, and there are no reimbursements: the bureaucracy is too complex for both citizens and technicians. Since November we are still waiting for an expert opinion for various complications relating to the regulations. Then, in the background, there is fear: “We don’t know what could happen with another flood of the Lamone. Will the work to secure the area be carried out? We don’t feel safe”, explains Lorenzo. “Today, those who have returned to their homes or have restored their damaged companies have done so only with their own strength and money. Life in Faenza seems to be back to what it was before. But you just need to talk to people to understand that this is not the case.”

The Enpap project which offers psychological support

The flood in Emilia-Romagna cost the lives of 16 people and caused more than 23 thousand displaced people. Two hundred thousand minors involved. The psychological well-being of the people who have been affected is a topic that is little addressed, but far from secondary. And offering concrete help in this sense is the objective of the second edition of the ‘Living Better’ project by Enpap, the national social security and assistance body for psychologists. A project that will offer over 1,600 free psychological consultancy or psychotherapy interventions to citizens who have experienced a traumatic event such as the flood, in the provinces of Emilia Romagna, Marche and Tuscany. Felice Torricelli, Enpap president, explains to Sky TG24 that the project consists of short courses – 12-14 sessions – “which have proven to be highly effective, as demonstrated by the data collected in the first edition, in which 80% of people reported stable improvements in one’s difficulties”. Those who live in the flooded areas have suffered massive collective stress, which has resulted ina general upheaval in the organization of people’s lives, dramatically worsening their quality. “In addition to post traumatic stress disorder, which is the most serious disorder directly linked to trauma”, in fact, “the psychological reaction to these upheavals can lead to more or less obvious psychological disorders, which are generally transitory but which involve, in addition to subjective discomfort, a worse functioning of the person in social, working and school life. However, in situations of repeated stress these disorders can evolve into chronic emotional disorders that are increasingly complex to treat,” says Torricelli. If the emergency passes, the psychological consequences remain.

“After an upheaval like that of a flood, as happened after the collective experience of Covid, people need to redefine a new balance,” explains the president. “When the emergency phase ends and the extraordinary solidarity activation ends, we need to reach a new normality but we find ourselves, at times, having to face situations of loss that we have not come to terms with”. For example “there are no longer some relationships that we were used to, sometimes there is no longer a home or job, priorities have changed and life goals themselves may have been distorted”. For this reason, psychological support can be crucial in the post-flood period. “As the data collected from the first edition of the project showed us, psychological support can make a big difference. Of the 9,222 citizens who took advantage of the free treatments for anxiety and depression, three months after the conclusion of the interventions, 80% no longer met the scientific criteria that indicate the need for intervention”.