Flooded underpasses in Palermo, sensors did not work. Amap, emergency procedure

“We have carried out, since yesterday afternoon and until this morning, the appropriate checks on the electronic control systems of the underpasses. The fault that yesterday caused the malfunction and the incorrect transfer of data to the Amap Safe app that allows citizens to have information in real time has been identified. Double alarm sensors will be installed in the next few hours, but in the meantime it seems appropriate to uninstall the control system of the Leonardo Da Vinci underpass until we are certain that the data has been correctly transferred to the App”. This is the first decision of the Sole Director of Amap, Giovanni Sciortino, after the summit that lasted until late at night with the managers of the company's services. “A fault in the remote control systems is also possible - Sciortino underlines - but we must ensure that we are reactive even in the presence of unforeseen events. For this reason - and with an urgent procedure - double sensors will be installed, a solution capable of guaranteeing greater precision in terms of alarm detection and consequent data transfer to the App”. But the analysis of the incident did not stop at the technological aspect. “The flooding phenomena – Sciortino continues – beyond the violence of the precipitation, deserve a detailed analysis that covers several aspects. Amap has been carrying out a cleaning plan for the drains for some time – and even in periods when rain is not forecast – for what is within our competence. And our competence concerns the subsoil. Too often the vents are blocked by stagnant waste or dragged by the violence of the storms, as also happened yesterday. But there is another factor that strongly affects the flooding in some areas of the city and I am referring to Corso Re Ruggero. The completion of the “South Eastern Collector” has not yet been defined, a work identified as an essential vector of urban wastewater to the Acqua dei Corsari purifier. And this work is the responsibility of the office of the Extraordinary Commissioner for purification. To be clear, it is wrong to attribute the flooding phenomena that occurred in correspondence with Corso Re Ruggero to the drain system. The sewer system of Corso Re Ruggero is, in fact, the point of delivery, in the only sewer collector existing today, also of rainwater coming from the highly urbanized inhabited area of ​​Corso Pisani, Piazza Indipendenza and via Ernesto Basile. The subway line present in correspondence with the aforementioned road has created a watershed between this system and the one downstream. In fact, the existing collector becomes a real bottleneck. The definitive arrangement to guarantee the correct lightening of the system - which should have been completed for some time - includes the construction, among others, of three injection wells to the South Eastern Collector, respectively in correspondence with: 1) Piazza Indipendenza 2) Via Brasa 3) Via Lodato The work, as mentioned, is the responsibility of the Sole Extraordinary Commissioner for Purification. After various vicissitudes, it has been re-tendered and is under construction”.

Meanwhile, for today, in anticipation of further rainfall, Amap has requested that the underpasses be guarded by the Civil Protection and the Municipal Police.