Flood in Romagna one year later: here’s how it goes. Photo and video

The news is a continuous flow of voices, names, stories, images of places, faces of men and women, which caught in a vortex first disappear from sight and are immediately erased from memory. A bit like a flood. May 2023, one year ago, Emilia Romagna. Twenty-three rivers flooded, 81 thousand landslides, 17 deaths. Eight billion and 800 million in damages. It was a disaster – photo | video

THEY HAVE FLOODED THEMSELVES – Yet it’s as if nothing had happened. General Francesco Figliuolo, flood commissioner, has his chest full of decorations, but here the medal should be given to the people of Romagna. City by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, house by house, they did everything, or almost everything, by themselves. They were flooded, they became flooded. A year later everything is (or seems) in order. Everything works. Life goes on. And the memory fades.
However, saving pieces of memory from the water, rediscovering the thread of those dramatic days, is still a possible operation. Today try to do it through images with the highest emotional charge. Those that the news, in its fury, had not managed to fully tell, but which, by dint of being reproduced by newspapers, TV, websites and social media, have become a symbol.

Flood in Emilia Romagna: 14 dead and 15 thousand displaced. Damages amounting to 6 billion: the dramatic balance sheet – Look

YESTERDAY & TODAY, THE PHOTOS – Like the man and woman, photographed in Lugo di Romagna, while they walked away from behind on a flooded avenue. We didn’t even know their faces. But in the streets, in the shops, in the bars there are those who have not forgotten. «A beautiful image», says a girl busy serving donuts and coffee, «seeing those two young people leaving, walking in the water, right here, on the street in front of us, opened my heart, it was a message of hope.” One clue after another leads to the two protagonists: Pavel, 36 years old, and his partner Kateryna, 37. After twelve months they followed the photographer to Viale Alberto Acquacalda and had themselves photographed in the same spot as a year ago and they told their story. He arrived in Italy 19 years ago from Ukraine, has a degree in economics and languages, and is a sales assistant in a company. She is also from Ukraine, but she did so two years ago, on March 5, 2022, two weeks after the war began. «I’m from Mykolaïv, near Odessa», says Kateryna, «and I immediately ran away. I am alone, I didn’t want my children to grow up in the midst of horror and I came to Italy, to my mother. I met Pavel, I found work as a waitress, then as an employee, my children go to school and I see them happy. The flood? Better than war. The water carried away a car and destroyed the cellar. We asked for help. They gave us a discount to buy a new car, but for the cellar the answer was no.” The story of Pavel and Kateryna repeats itself countless times.

Flood in Emilia Romagna, a shot to save books – Look

… AND THE MEMORIES OF THEN – From Ravenna to Forlì, Cesena, Faenza, like the collector of a filthy tax, the mud got everywhere, it went from house to house taking furniture, cars, motorbikes, kitchens. In Forlì, under the embankment of the Montone river, Massimo Briganti and Gabriella Gurioli laugh: «That evening we placed two bags of sand in front of the gate. Fifteen minutes later the whole neighborhood was submerged.” In the flooded warehouses and laboratories, machinery and goods were piled up to be thrown away. Ivan Cicognani, who restores pinball machines and juke boxes for collectors all over the world, still isn’t giving up: «I lost very rare pieces that were worth at least 700 thousand euros», he says. Animals have died in the countryside and one season’s harvest has failed. «In Fratta Terme», say the brothers Claudio and Franco Nadiani, owners of a bar, «the systems that fished in the sulphurous water wells are useless, the Grand Hotel has closed, no one comes here anymore and if it continues like this there will let’s all go.” Gianluigi Fiorella, restorer and conservator of cultural heritage, moves from one town to another: «Important testimonies from the Etruscan and Roman era must be secured». Like the Cervia salt pan, which has existed since ancient times: «We have lost 2023 production and machinery worth 10 million euros», says president Giuseppe Pomicetti. «No money has arrived. We console ourselves with people’s gratitude. The salt pan extends for 827 hectares and was able to absorb the flood wave of the Savio river, preventing Cervia from ending up under water.”

Flood in Emilia Romagna, nothing after the politicians’ catwalks – Look

WE GOT UP ALONE, WITHOUT THE STATE’S HELP – It is an endless list and the State, understood as Government, Region, Municipalities, still cannot keep up with everyone. «Do you know what the portal where we have to deposit refund requests is called?», says Lorena from Ravenna. «Sphinx, it’s called. A name that was perhaps more suitable for the Nile floods. It’s not good here. Enigmatic is an understatement. You go in and understand that it’s better to leave it alone and make do as you can.” Slowness and inefficiencies have been denounced by mayors, committees and entrepreneurs. And confirmed by the numbers. If, according to the commissioner’s estimates, the families affected by the reimbursements are between 50 and 70 thousand, the cases registered so far on the Sphinx would be just over 2 thousand.
Giacinto Bosi the Sphinx doesn’t know what it is. But the flood did. Giacinto is the over eighty-year-old from Faenza who ended up in newspapers all over the world as he was picked up on the shoulder by a policeman and carried to safety through a sea of ​​mud: «The water had reached the top of the stairs», he recalls today in front of his house in via Torretta, «the carabinieri were in the street, shouting at me “come down, come down”. Come on down, I yelled at him, I don’t know how to swim. One of them came to the entrance and took me away. I was able to return home after a month. A disaster. I first received 3 thousand euros and then another 2, I don’t know exactly who. At 82 I don’t expect anything else and I don’t dream of going looking for it.”

Sergio Mattarella in Emilia Romagna, the mayors greet him like this – Look

SO MUCH DISTRUST TOWARDS THE INSTITUTIONS – It is an attitude of mistrust shared even by those who are younger. So far, 36 thousand have received 3 thousand euros for the most urgent interventions, plus another 2 thousand from the Region for documented expenses. It would be 180 million euros. For private individuals alone, 630 were made available (so 450 are missing), plus another 700 in tax deductions. «They told us to be patient, they say they will arrive», Renata Buratti, a goldsmith in Cesena, opens her arms. Teresa Gottarelli, who entered the disaster album while clutching her little dog Julien to her chest, agreed to redo the photo from a year ago, in the center of Castel Bolognese (Ravenna): «After 1966 and 2009, it is the third flood of the my life,” he says. “I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation in time and I lost a lot of stuff. I had something, but no one will ever be able to compensate for certain memories.”

Storm in Emilia Romagna, Lake Andreuccio floods – Look

NOT ONLY MEMORIES REMAIN BUT MANY DOUBTS… – The flood victims have freed themselves from the mud, but not from the memory, which remains inside the houses, in the smell that still permeates the walls, in the humidity that peels the plaster and raises the floors. It also remains in your thoughts like an annoying background noise. «The exceptional nature of the event cannot be discussed», comments a ceramist from Faenza, «but the water did not do everything by itself». It is widely believed that the fatality was favored by errors and omissions in the management of the waterways, and by the delay in raising the alarm. At the beginning of April the Carabinieri delivered their report to the prosecutors of Ravenna and Forlì. The magistrates are at work. Commemorations and anniversaries have passed. But we will still talk about the flood.

Giuseppe Fumagalli