Flood of Versilia of 19 June 1996

L’ Flood of Versilia It was a serious alluvial event that affected part of the historical region of Versilia in Tuscany on June 19, 1996 following a particularly violent temporal phenomenon that occurred in the transition between spring and summer.

On the morning of June 19, 1996, Versilia sky was clear: the forecasts gave sky clear or not very cloudy skies.
In reality, that day a clash of cold air from Northern Italy with a humid hot air from the coast was underway on the ridges of the Apuan Alps, which caused a very rapid meteorological evolution, thus promoting the formation of an apparently modest temporal cell high, however 12 Km and about half of half, very charged with rainfall (convective storm).

Violent storms unleashed starting from the early morning on the Apuan Alps, affecting the whole high basin of the Serra and Vezza streams (the latter confluential in a single stream in Seravezza, Versilia) on the western watershed, and all the upper part of the Basin of the Turritite Torrente di Gallicano on the eastern watershed. Precipitation also affected part of the Basin of the Camaiore river.

All this while only a few drops of rain fell on the Versilia plain. In a short time the extraordinary rainfall (with peaks of over 150 mm in an hour on the high basin of the vezza) caused various landslides, and the waterways swallowed rapidly. In the face of a short break, which took place late in the morning, the rains resumed to fall even more intensely over the day of the day that goes from noon to the early afternoon, and then unleashed the flood. Raining rains were the mountains and valleys near the town of Cardoso where various minor streams originate, at the inhabited area, at the Vezza stream.

Meanwhile, in the plains no one could remotely predict what was happening: in the area of ​​Pietrasanta, at the short stretch of plain of the Versilia river, just 5–10 mm of rain had fallen. The Civil Protection was activated by premising, around 2:00 pm, to control the rainfall values ​​on the Apuan Alps, discovering that one of the hydrometers at the center of Pomezzana in the upper valley of the Vezza stream, recorded a cumulative value of record rainfall, with 440 mm in just 8 hours and a maximum tip of 157 mm in an hour. In the fear that some sudden floods could occur, the levels of the rivers were immediately checked, especially Versilia that at first observation was located, after the large flood wave of the morning, deceivedly falling.

In reality, the disaster had already been accomplished and a huge full was about to arrive on the Versilia river.

Around 13:00 in the upper valley, the Vezza torrent (high stretch of the Versilia river) began its devastating race towards the center of Cardoso: here, in fact, according to eye witnesses, numerous roasts from the mountains were first heard After that repeated waves of water, mud and debris up to 4-5 meters high from the valleys of the rivers confluential in the country, which was therefore invested and destroyed almost completely.

The rapidity and sudden violence of the event found its justification in the fact that the very strong rains already in the morning, combined with the drought that had been plaguing the area for months, had made the already unstable slopes of the Apuan Alps even more fragile causing huge landslides of the land , debris and trunks that had blocked, with temporary barrier, all the valleys of the waterways upstream of Cardoso that give rise to the Vezza stream; Therefore, various kiss of ephemeral water had been created which, then giving all crash set in the early afternoon under the incessant rainfall, gave rise to a wave of full catastrophic.

After devastating Cardoso, the full continued on the Vezza stream and first invested the center of Ponte Stazzemese (where he came to touch the 2nd floor of the houses, making an entire hotel fall in part) and then reached Ruosina where the entire inhabited area submerged, canceling almost The road of the valley floor is completely. In the meantime, additional contributions of water came to the Vezza from each lateral valley, feeding more and more its flood.

Around 15:00 the full furious event came to the town of Seravezza which was largely submerged by 2-3 meters of water; In this stretch, the Vezza stream then received from the right also the flood of its main tributary, the Serra torrent and changing from this confluence onwards denomination in “Versilia river”, continued impetuous and overflowing with debris towards the valley, literally sending to failure (in The moment in which he marked the value of 4.50 m above the hydrometric zero), the only hydrometer present along its river rod.
Therefore, other data relating to the maximum height of flood are not known if not that relating to the maximum flow peak, estimated following the event, in about 571 m³/s, absolutely exceptional and irrepressible value for a modest river such as Versilia.

After Seravezza, Versilia surmounted and destroyed all the bridges near the centers of Ripa, Corvaia and Vallecchia, abandoning its valley stretch and finding outlet in the plain of Versilia: in this stretch the river (channeled and diverted in the centuries passed in an artificial riverbed which flows near Montignoso’s fifties), literally spread to the San Bartolomeo di Pietrasanta locality due to the surmount and consequent failure of a large stretch of its left argine, thus creating a new course south, or following the ancient route of the His old scrolling riverbed, thus causing an extensive flooding of the whole west portion of the Municipality of Pietrasanta to the hamlet of Marina di Pietrasanta, Forte dei Marmi and part of the municipality of Montignoso.

In the meantime, the tragedy had also affected the eastern side of the Apuanes in Garfagnana: in the upper Valle del Torrente Turrite the center of Fornovolasco was literally devastated by the flood of the watercourse. More downstream, however, the damage was minimal thanks to the presence of an artificial lake on the watercourse which, completely empty for maintenance, was able to accommodate by braking the impetus much of the flood by saving the center located more downstream of Gallicano.
Around 18:00 the pluviometers of Pomezzana and Retignano, in Alta Versilia, showed cumulative values ​​of rainfall respectively equal to 478 and 401 mm in 13 hours. That of Fornovolasco, in Garfagnana, 408 mm. This tragedy, considered as one of the worst floods that Tuscany has ever hit after the flood of Florence in 1966, also caused a high number of victims: at the end of the emergency there will be 13 deaths, almost all of Cardoso, and a missing .

• Elena Bianchini (30 years old)
• Giulia Macchiarini (4 years)
• Valentino Guidi (72 years old)
• Renata Marcucci (67 years old)
• Valeria Guidi (43 years old, missing)
• Alessio Ricci (9 years old)
• Graziana Luisi (40 years old)
• Manuela Luisi (32 years old)
• Alma Santarelli (73 years old)
• Santarelli Norma (54 years old)
• Amos Mario Cavani (53 years old)
• Isolina Frati (68 years old)
• Elvino Pieruccioni (72 years old)
• Margherita Vincenti (76 years old)

The coach Marco Fornaciari (41 years old) died during an inspection on the places affected by the flood.