Bad weather, the alert is raised in Veneto.Zaia:“Don't take photos of swollen rivers, avoid going out”

"Impressive showers", rain up to 229 mm in 6 hours.President Zaia invites citizens to be cautious

BOLOGNA – After Milan, the bad weather warning is now for the Veneto, where disturbances are expected for the afternoon and until this evening.The alert issued, of a higher level and therefore red, is valid until 2pm tomorrow, Friday 17 May.President Luca Zaia spoke about the very "difficult" situation that firefighters and operators are managing, starting yesterday, and explained that "thanks to the lamination basins we avoided a disaster“.

READ ALSO: Broken embankments and flooding in Veneto:here are the photos

PRESIDENT ZAIA:“MOMENT OF OBJECTIVE DIFFICULTY“

Rain up to 229 millimeters in six hours, with peaks of 70 in half an hour, and 148 in the plains... "Impressive showers" with the effect of "significant damage, three embankment breaches" (Castelnuovo, Isola Vicentina and Valverla), a couple of bridges "gone" to Malo, "landslides and various messes...".In short, "a moment of objective difficulty" which has lasted in Veneto since yesterday and which president Luca Zaia sums it up like this:“We didn't expect a flood in mid-May.It was an unusual event", which has been getting worse hour by hour since yesterday until it was necessary to request the activation of the crisis unit and to declare a state of emergency. A phase that "is putting us in difficulty" so much so that it has become the "only time that we have opened all the rolling basins", but the "news is that thanks to the lamination basins we avoided a disaster…”.
In Vicenza, the Ponte degli Angeli saw the water at its highest, little more "and today in Vicenza the firefighters were going around with the dinghy".There have been widespread flooding in the lower Padua area, the Vicenza area has suffered, there are many flooded basements… But thanks to the hydraulic works (the six rolling basins are partially full), which Veneto claims as pride and model, theand water bombs did hit but the territory 'held up'. However, Zaia invites the Venetians to document the damage with photos and then start the procedures for compensation.
It is true that once again the impact of climate change is being felt first-hand.Phenomena like the one witnessed "in May do not appear", highlights the Civil Protection councilor Giampaolo Bottacin. The peaks of 70 millimeters of water in half an hour are "enormous quantities and we have no memory of such heavy rainfall in 30 years“.

“DON'T TAKE PHOTOS OF FLOOD RIVERS, BE CAREFUL”

And since forecasts are still critical, Zaia makes a "prayer to citizens to be cautious", asks us to "avoid going out and traveling long distances", and not to find ourselves in the middle of a downpour or on a street that floods at least until tomorrow.Make movements as strictly necessary,” he says, but “without spreading alarmism” and reiterating that you shouldn't go and take photos along the banks of swollen rivers.The forecasts for the next few hours, says the president of Veneto, "require us to say to be very careful, don't take photos of rivers in flood, there is always the risk of the banks breaching" and in general "we will have a battle" from the point weather-wise, "until tomorrow and then we'll see how it goes."Among the topics touched on by Zaia also the problem of badgers and nutria responsible for the weakening of the banks which have faltered.“I'm not on a crusade against otters, but the health and safety of citizens come first...“, he says.Other inconveniences and problems derive from the fact that the rainwater drainage network in many places dates back to the 1950s and is therefore not able to absorb the quantities of rain falling now.

THE CIVIL PROTECTION ALERT

The Veneto Civil Protection has issued a valid updated hydrogeological and hydraulic criticality notice from 12pm today to 2pm tomorrow, That the state of alertness increases up to the alarm level in much of the regional territory.The weather forecast indicates for today's afternoon, Thursday 16 May, a new unstable-disturbed phase with widespread rainfall with a predominantly downpour and thunderstorm character moving from the south-west towards the north-east;probable locally intense phenomena between the plains and the Prealps (strong showers, local hailstorms and strong gusts of wind) with even abundant quantities of precipitation during the most organized and insistent convective systems.General thinning and attenuation of the phenomena in the late evening.

THE AREAS MOST AT RISK

For the hydraulic criticality the state of alarm has been declared (red) in the Alto Brenta-acchiglione-Alpone and Basso Brenta-Bacchiglione basins, and a state of pre-alarm (orange) in the Livenza, Lemene and Tagliamento basins, attention in the rest of the basins except for the upper Piave (green).As for the hydrogeological criticality:alarm state (red) nand the Po, Fissero-Tartaro-CanalBianco and Basso Adige basins;of the Lower Brenta-Bacchiglione;of the Lower Piave, Sile and the lagoon drainage basin;pre-alarm status (orange) in all the rest of the regional basins. The hydrogeological warning for thunderstorms in all the river basins of the Veneto is maximum with the exception of the upper Piave area of ​​Belluno. In consideration of the rainfall that has occurred and is expected, the Civil Protection recommends paying particular attention to the hydraulic rods relating to the basins of the Brenta, Bacchiglione, Retrone, Alpone, Chiampo, Fratta-Gorzone rivers as well as the Adige river, and those of the Eastern Veneto (Monticano, Meschio , Livenza Tagliamento).