A Polish-Italian family suffered in the flood and is helping others

Monika Pelczar works in a footwear company. Muddy water entered the factory in Sant’Agata sul Santerno, destroying all the machines in the production line and ready-to-ship shoes ordered by customers from around the world.

Now Monika brings help to flood victims in the most devastated areas. “We’re helping out with the pouring rain that doesn’t stop,” she said.

Pier Luigi Consorti related: “It started with the rain a little further away, around Forli. And then the water started coming in all the time, without stopping, for days. And then almost everything was under it, also in our city”.

“The houses were flooded to the first floor, the water took many cars, including ours. An unimaginable disaster. There were bodies of victims in the water, objects taken from houses floated” – emphasized the resident of Forli, who waded in the water alone after getting out of the car, which was then swept away by the flood wave.

Added: “Images like from war. Destroyed houses are visible everywhere, household appliances are lying on the streets, where water and mud are falling.”

High school student Laura volunteers to clean the streets of Forli. Volunteers like her are called Mud Angels in Italy. The name was coined more than half a century ago during the catastrophic flooding in Florence, where volunteers cleaned the streets and rescued everything, including antiques and books, from flooded houses.

“Fortunately, the water is slowly receding, and where it is almost gone, there is a layer of mud of almost one meter. Many people put on wellingtons and go to action with shovels to shovel them away. This is our job these days, especially for young people, because schools they are closed. We have to take everything out of the flooded houses: furniture, utensils, pots, clothes, photographs. We put it all on the sidewalks, and the houses are cleaned of mud, “said the teenager.

Author: Sylwia Wysocka