Collapse viaduct, it is alarm in Campania: only one technician every hundred bridges

"I'm ashamed. It is better not to say that I have the delegation to the viability ». Antonio Rescigno, mayor of Bracigliano, for a chain of events linked to the cancellation of half of the provinces, finds himself managing not only a town of five thousand inhabitants but over half of the provincial roads in Campania: the 2,700 kilometers out of the 5,200 in the region. Surveyor, Rescigno after the staff cuts due first to the Delrio reform and then to early retirement can count on a handful of technicians. How many? "About ten". Only ten? "In truth even less: eight." They make one every 300 kilometers. One for every hundred bridges. Worried? «I am, of course. But it would be irresponsible to say "I'm going home."

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This is how local roads are made in Italy. Cuts to personnel and financing in the wake of anti-politics – which had identified in the Provinces the totem to be killed – with the result that in Italy there are 1,918 bridges or viaducts that «need urgent action since the limitation of the transit or of the flow is already subject ", according to the UPI reported yesterday, the Union of Italian provinces, which accuses the government of not following up the dossier prepared after the collapse of the Morandi bridge. "In a few weeks we delivered the report to the Ministry of Infrastructure – the president of the UPI and the Province of Ravenna, Michele de Pascale – but nothing has been done".

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In Campania the works with «priority 1", Certainly in critical conditions, there are 171 out of a total of 512 interventions needed, and there are another 1,390 works that should be monitored. The province of Salerno is in the most critical conditions, but there are no territories free of problems.

Let me be clear: no one goes so far as to say that circulating on the roads of Campania is dangerous, because as soon as there is a sign of abating it is provided with the securing, that is the limitation or the closure of the traffic. However the net is fragile, very fragile and can collapse in case of adverse weather events, which have become frequent.

Just today in the province of Avellino (1,596 kilometers of roads to be monitored) the managing director Franco Di Cecilia will bring together the only manager at the road network together with the four technicians of the first band left to develop the anti-snow plan. "I divided the province into four areas – says Di Cecilia – and in each there is a team of three or four experts who patrol the territory. Ten years ago the staff was threefold ". The cut was really impressive.

The Province of Caserta (1,443 kilometers of roads) ended up in disarray in 2015 and in four years it increased from 1,000 to 285 employees for all functions. In a situation of staff shortages, there are those who try to do the impossible. In the province of Benevento (1,245 kilometers of managed roads) Salvatore Minicozzi, responsible for the Viability service, after the fall of some boulders on November 5 on the road Cerreto-Cusano Mutri he didn't just close the artery but went to the place to try to understand. And yesterday he published the photos on the website of the Province: "The shots concern – he says – only a part of the enormous quantity of stones and tree trunks unsafe on the slope that threatened to invade the provincial road". In practice the nets have done their job keeping almost all the boulders and many tall trees that risked falling on the road after a flight of a hundred meters. "Many protection networks – continues Minicozzi – have totally or partially yielded and therefore the threat is still concrete". Today there will be another inspection to decide what to do.

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"The truth is that one cannot harness everything – he observes Giancarlo Sarno, the manager of the viability of the metropolitan city of Naples – the water flow must be managed. Road safety depends on that ». The former Province of Naples is almost a happy island in the Campania region. The kilometers managed have been reduced in the last two years from 800 to 650 because some road axes have passed to the Anas. Monitoring is entrusted to ten mini-teams composed of an engineer (or an architect) and a surveyor. Each team must control 65 kilometers. Not a few, but not even the 300 in Salerno. "We are in a condition of security – says Sarno – albeit in a phase of suffering". The managing director of the Metropolitan City, Raffaele Cacciapuoti, has just obtained a loan of 17 million to be assigned with a tender for an extraordinary monitoring plan, first visual and then if necessary instrumental, of the over 200 bridges of the territory.

At the moment the most critical situation is on the viaducts of the former Statale 87 south of Frattamaggiore, where the fall of some bolts has triggered the alarm. The road has been reduced from two to one lane, with a weight limit for trucks. Curiously, it is a superhighway that is one-way because the northern section, designed in the 1980s, has never been built due to the presence of two high-voltage pylons and, when the pylons have been moved, there are was more funding. "We did what we were touched – says Sarno – now it's up to the owners of the street". Meaning? "The region. We are only managers ».

Where money is scarce, an agreement is sought with other public institutions. "In Salerno – says Rescigno – we made an agreement with the University to start monitoring. We managed to invest 100 thousand euros a year for three years. We are trying to give answers especially in Cilento. We have divided the province into ten areas but for each area we can spend 450 thousand euros for maintenance. Shortly. And so every day I think that the bridges and viaducts under my responsibility are 752 ». Exactly: a technician every hundred bridges.

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