“It’s still too early” to provide a timetable for restoring the road connection between Cogne and the valley floor, after the damage caused by the flooding of the Grand Eyvia torrent. Thus Fabrizio Curcio, head of the National Civil Protection Department, told reporters at the end of the meeting in Saint-Christophe (Aosta) to take stock of the damage caused by the bad weather together with the President of the Region, Renzo Testolin, and the technicians of the regional civil protection. «The event is underway, the waterways – explained Curcio – are still very high. Even to understand the type of technical intervention to be carried out, it is necessary to understand the type of damage, how far the water reached it, which part was the most eroded. In some cases we have seen and been told about a change in part of the watercourse. So there are analyzes that require technical time to be more precise.”
«The priorities – said Curcio – are the people to bring down, the roads, the essential services, that is, a part of the aqueduct, some electrical parts that need to be fixed, and then there are all the procedures for the state of emergency because this then allows the territory to operate more quickly.” The continuation of the isolation of Cogne would weigh on the tourist economy of the town at the foot of Gran Paradiso. «Like all communities – added the head of Civil Protection – it wants to restart and restart quickly. These are communities that live off tourism and this area, particularly in the coming months, is in great demand, so there is a need to do things quickly. Not only do operators want to work but tourists want to come, so I think this is an element to take into account”.
