“Those screams in the cars blocked by the logs on the road”

Flooded houses and basements, people who have spent the night away from home and impassable roads. The next day in Luvinate is translated into a few but eloquent snapshots: the sign “closed due to flooding” from the Giardino bar up on the hill on the main road that goes to Varese, with water and mud splashes on the newspapers and magazines all to be bitten, or the lady’s hands Piera Bianchi, resident Via Vittorio Veneto 61 who has lived here for 58 years and shows the watermarks on the wall that are almost as tall as her and reach the ground floor window: “A terrible fear. Something never seen before, ”he says with the broom still in hand.

All thoughts will Mario farsetti to the victim of the water, the 61-year-old man by Barasso found this morning of Tinella Stream that crosses the town and that last night literally “exploded” at the height of the Via San Vito where a three-arched bridge under which the river flows was blocked by boulders and debris that caused it to overflow. the result is the flooding of numerous municipal and state highways.

Francesca Puggioni, 29 years old, she was on the first floor of her house overlooking Highway 394. It is she who documented with videos and photos what was happening below, seen from her balcony: this morning with her mother she cleaned the curtain of the house. “But that’s nothing: we hear the screams of people in cars blocked by logs on the road. Something terrible. “The carts stopped first because of the water, but then those who were driving realized that they could not move because of the large logs washed down the river by the fury of the current.

Cries for help also in the other affected part of the city, the one that goes from via San Vito to via Postale Vecchia where Silvia Molinari he is in the garden of his house while shoveling mud with his whole family: «Everyone was screaming in fear. We fled to the square because they told us it was dangerous to be here. He did the same Arturo Marchi, opposite, with his Panda trapped in the courtyard between the gallery and the garage by half a meter of mud.

He also had a bad time Antonio Broggi with three children, wife and elderly father who fled like hell: “I was born here and had never seen such a thing, the firefighters saved us.” Meanwhile, the Municipality has become the headquarters to coordinate the aid. Volunteers arrive to be available as the weather worsens and at 11 am the hail arrives. The room that is usually used for conferences has been fitted out with cots and blankets and for now four displaced families are cared for, the rest belong to relatives. The alert is high and the water coming down the mountain is scary.