rain

It looks awful - those poor people whose homes and workshops have been filled with stinking mud.  Not the sunny Italy of the holiday brochures!

Snow causing problems elsewhere http://www.agi.it/english-version/italy/elenco-notizie/201103030847-cro-ren1009-weather_woes_snow_blizzards_on_highways_of_emilia_romagna

We've all had no electric (came back on last night). The rain was horrendous and there are landslides everywhere. Then we had very wet heavy snow - the sort that brings your roof down. There are many roads closed and the Tronto burst its banks. There was (depending on which article you read) between 20 and 30cm of rain in 12 hours. Then we got snow.... Marche does seem to have had the worst of it and as Adriatica says the region has declared a state of emergency. It is definitely not confined to the coastal area here. Foce di Montemonaco was/is cut off due to an avalanche. Many roads are impassable due to mud or landslides or just collapsing. Won't be leaving my house for a few days I think.

the main teramo coastal road called the teramo mare.. finished a couple of years back if that.. these photos form a face book friends page and the comments say it all to my mind..  they have made underpasses with no capacity to allow drainage away.. so basically creating watre storage sites on the main road.. today Teramo had its first death when a body was found there in the underpass.. heres an album from a friends facebook page..     i like facebook .. it brings you so much news and opinions from where you are based .. in fact for local news and locals opinions there is no better way of keeping up with things when you live here.. the teramo mare is a sort of local joke in its fragility and bad construction .. its fallen to bits so many times since it was built it has left the old road more used now then when this new road was built..

High winds are also causing all kinds of problems. Thoughts and prayers with everyone impacted by the storms. We're getting peaks of sun today in Rome, but I don't expect it to last.  The pure deluge we've been having the last few days was incredible.

Not so bad up in our hills around Montegiorgio, but the worst rain in 40 years, and as others have said, mud slides, and trees down, all over Marche, friends near to Monte San Martino without power for over 24hrs now, and the loss of life is very sad. Thanks for your friends pictures Adriatica, a dire situation on the coast.

Hi; We're well, although we had to remove 3 to 4 inches of water from the garage as it's below ground level; we're better off than some poor souls particularly in the Fermo area, where sadly there have been 2 deaths caused directly by the floods. In Ascoli there's plenty of problems, and in fact another death reported there. The local and coastal situation can be followed at www.picenooggi.it . At the moment (Thursday 15;00) we have light drizzle, that is in fact helping clean up the Salaria, which has suffered from mud slides, some of which have made driving difficult.

maybe think on this a bit.. although i realise human loss is terrible the kennels at alba adriatica were flooded.. no point commenting on the fact that it seems a starnge place to site it..or even that someone should have been there to let them all out.. 100 dogs dead..   from facebook and another friend of mine are the details of the efforts still needed to help with those that were rescued and need food and blankets.. and dare i say even adoption to get them out of the place long term.. here is the link with contact details and ways to help there are pictures included in the appeal via ANTA ONLUS .. this is there web site  they are involved in the care of all animals here not just domestic.. anyway maybe if you have your own facebook page there might be urgent appeals being made locally if not then this place needs help here is an intersting  article that came out in 2009 wher the figures are that 99 % of comunes in marche are at risk from water problems... ie floods / landslides.. with varying levels of risk.. one of the main reasons is the over development where back in the 60s 92 % of the land was zoned as agricultural now its just 69 % a loss equivalent to 229 thousand hectares.. thats from 2009 .. 2 years on i guess its even more thats been built over.. cementification..  what i do find funny is how these reports are never acted upon..  one wonders why they bother.. not even figured into emergency planning .. its not just the marche .. its all Italy and the world.. its just when happening near you you wonder why people carry on acting so blindly.. now the sea is full of chemicals and other things washed off the land.. blue flag beaches will not mean much this year i would think.. at this rate the Adriatic will end up a dead sea much as the med is...

Thats terrible about the poor dogs. Just awful for so many to drown. Finally got power back this morning near Monte san Martino, poor Dylano near Gualdo is still without any or a phone line. We're fine, lost some trees completely and others are looking very sad - on wed night Mr Am was out at midnight shaking the new snow off our remaining ones to try to save them - it was such slushy heavy snow. We now value good led head torches very highly plus being able to keep warm with a woodburner we could also cook and heat water on - horrible to not being able to keep warm. So many mudslides and still loads of snow round here - more trouble to come as it melts no doubt and heartbreaking to see so many lovely olive trees smashed up. Still compared to those who lost lives down in the coastal area we thank our lucky stars. Thanks also to kind friends who let us recharge batteries and equip and have hot showers and hats off to the locals who got the rds open and driveable again so quickly. Have personally learned lots about what is important when the lights go out, thought we were prepared but will be more so in future - ikea tealights lovely on a dinner table but bloomin rubbish to actually see much by - big fat church candles and plenty of spare batteries are what you need. Hope others in the area all ok - has Badger clocked in? wondered if his geothermic heating was stuffed by the powercuts - hope he had lowtech back up like us in the form of a stufa..And Phil coseperlacasa - he's near the coast I think, hope ok there.. Am

i guess its a bit worrying the lack of input from many of the Marche people.. .. had not though about lectricty being off or phone lines down.. plus all the other issues.. hope all are ok looking at forecastes ahead to next week it seems like we are all due snow.. so more grief to come .. roll on spring ..and warmer days.. have heard from some people that they have had water cut off too.. mud slides in some areas have cut pipes.. so its another problem.. mainly around the more susceptible areas to erosion problems.. have heard that to the north of Bisenti a lot of damage has occured with fields slipping down hills and the projected snow is not going to make life any easier as resources will be stretched .. contaminated water supplies are also a problem.. water companies here rely heavily on sourcing water from local springs .. which is fine but it also means that floods bring contaminants via ground water into undreground local sorces of clean water so its important to be aware that local supplies might well be a bit iffy until they get around all the outlying areas to test and add in filters.. its more relevant outside of main towns as they get supplied via the main reservoirs in the mountains so are less susceptible to changes or contaminants my other comment would be and i know its late now.. but we bought a 3 kw generator for our house.. and when renewing the lectrics made a provision to have an input point to the house so that when there are pwoer cuts we turn the generator on and it just supplies as a mains..  its a very simple and cheap solution.. well compared to many other costs here.. you can pick up a generator for a few hundred euros.. if you get a rated one of 3 kws it will most probaly manage 2.5 which is pretty well close to a normal mains input.. meaning that all essentials will keep running .. ie boilers and circulation pumps for hot water and heating.. fridges and freezers and most probably computers and TVs.. skip ironing and microwaves ... electric ovens..maybe..  i know candlelight is suggested as a romantic break from modern living but when its wet and cold and maybe tou have to work and come home .. or clear snow form outside the joys of returning to a dark cold house are limited in my opinion.. i guess it cost us 400 euro to set it all up.. and we have used it maybe 4 times since we had it.. in three years.. basically you have to have an input to the house between the mains supply box and the trip / fuse protection box... its a two way switch so that you can never make the mistake of having two inputs at the same time.. ie if switched to mains it cuts off the generator input.. so when power comes back on you flip the switch.. and you get back to normal without any interuption.. allowing you to leave the generator on to run dry of fuel... worst problem is making sure you remeber where you keep everything and how to start it all..because you use it rarely on the dog front people have been very responsive and blankets and food is arriving.. and volunteers to help.. in general these are people that already do a lot in that sense anyway.. hard to believe but there is a huge community that do get involved in animal rights and care here.. and am sure if anyone wanted they could easily find a local place to them that will always be happy for help .. like i say thats why i like facebook.. it gives good access to whats happening localy and keep you up to fdate with things.. lots of which you dont get to see or hear about via local news..

So sad to hear about the dogs and also others who are still cut off. Thanks Amaretto, for thinking about us. We were off until 7.00 pm Weds, so about 40 hrs. Luckily. we have a cheap analogue phone as a back-up, so could still make calls. For heating, we have a large woodburner, so that also came into use for about the longest time in 6 years!! Also have one of those Kerosene heaters, plus a lpg heater, so managed to keep the heat level constant. Lighting by candles is not the best when trying to cook though!! Felt sorry for the farmer across the valley from us, as he has 300 cows to milk twice a day, but he was connected on Tues evening. Then watched the power line that feeds us from above him go up like a large sparkler otherwise we would have been connected sooner. Biggest pain was drying off the dogs, as usually use a hairdryer after a quick towel down. Hope Dylano is back on by now as is everyone else.

"Lighting by candles is not the best when trying to cook though!!" You might want to consider buying a cheap 'inverter ' for future power cuts.  They convert 12v DC [car battery] up to 240v and can supply enough power to run a few lights etc Typical example [in UK] is;-  http://www.flatbatt.co.uk/Electrical/12v_to_mains_inverter/12v_to_mains_inverter.html       which supplies up to a max of 450W  [but continuous use of 150W] and costs about £40.  Assuming energy saving bulbs, you could get plenty of lights going, although its best to just have 1 or 2 to extend the battery life

Dylano is still in the dark - all around her are reconnected so we are trying to get on to enel to find out how much longer - she seems to be on another branch of the wire from her neighbours. They are not the easiest of people to deal with by phone for a non native speaker lol - putting the phone down seems to be their modus when faced with someone who only speaks simple italian and when asked to talk slowly they invariably speed up. Or is it just us that has this prob with them?! Adriatica how much fuel does your generator use for a few hours leccy - presumably its diesel so do you keep a few gallons of that stashed away too? Snowing heavily here again now which was not forecast, hope we keep the power. We're looking at the cost of a small pv set up - just to get .5kw would be handy to fuel a laptop and a couple of lights.  Liking alan's idea too, much online research going on right now! Glad you and yours are ok Badger, sometimes lowtech stuff is worth its weight in gold. Roll on Spring..   Am

You have given me a few fields of thought regarding this, as also Adriatica. 1) I could use the ride-on mower to run a converter, through its own charging system, so just like a generator for the lighting side of things. 2) To buy a generator with 3phase and single phase to run the heat pump and lighting etc of the house. I think I can get one for about E 500 in petrol. As the pump only uses 2.2Kw then that would be a good option. 3) To set up a 12v lighting system via the cable ducts already running through the house. Because we have not previously had power cuts of this duration, the thought has never come to mind.

Sorry to hear Dylano is still off. We have a friend close by who had the same problem last year. Enel told him there was nothing wrong according to them. We asked an Italian farmer friend to speak to them and it was only then they resolved the issue.

A friend has called successfully and they say she is still in a fault zone and they are working on it so hope they will have her back on soon, rotten luck when neighbours are ok but thats they way it goes I guess, I wonder how they are faring higher up where the snow must be much deeper, quite odd to go down to Piane de Falerone and all is normal there if a little soggy. We have not heard from Sebastiano have we yet - hope they are ok, can't imagine him being anything but hugely competent in these situs.. Am

its a petrol generator and runs for i think about 3 hours on load .. do not ask me how much that is because we have a big can for lawnmowers and things always full.. and you know what i always buy things like petrol and diesel by euro not lts.. sorry to be so useless in that respect.. i think essential when planning is a location that is away from the house..they are noisey.. covered ..you dont want it to get wet.. and opensided..fumes...  we run it via an extension cable to an outside socket that then goes through the switch i was talking about before.. have only ever used it once.. for a long time..about 3 years ago.. and a couple of other times but short spells..this time no power outage.. but is such a simple cheap solution that gives you back normal life in seconds that it was money well spent to my mind..

our electricity went off last Tuesday 01/03 and only came back after much begging at the ENEL man last night 05/03 at 19.00pm. It was really terrible ,apart from no light,no water (it's all pumped here) no heat (even the fire is eletronically controlled) it went down to 5°c interior temperature.we had to ship out the contents of 4 freezers to avoid a considerable loss,we couldn't work of course with the computer out too.it's now back after this interesting life experience.however of three roads from our place to the rest of the area 2 are closed due to landslides,one may be closed for a very long time as the road has gone down the other has around two hindred quintali of wood and detritous blocking it...Even ENEL had to bring in specialist squads from Vicenza and Padova in order to try to bring back the power to more isolated places and even we are running off enel emergency generators as many lines are still down and with the snow and mud there's not much they can do till it starts to dry out a bit 

Glad you have your power back, it sounds like it was very difficult!, hopefully with todays sunshine, and sun for the rest of the week (?) it will dry out and things return to normal, people in Gualdo I think still without power.

Happened to notice that the Leroy Merlin (formerly Castorama) near Pescara airport is selling a couple of models of generators that run off GPL. From memory, one was 3kW and one 5kW and, from memory again, I think one was around €300 and one €500 (although it's possible I'm being optimistic on those pricetags!). They were very tempting, particularly since a week or so before, we had our cheap, Chinese petrol-powered generator running for 36 hours due to a power failure caused by that horrible snow in February. The generators looked a lot more robust than the one we have and the idea of not having to mess around with filling a little petrol tank was appealing, especially since you obvously have to keep the thing outside when it's running and it's highly likely that the only time you'll need to use it is when the weather is nasty. I don't have any experience of them, but I believe that engines running on GPL are supposed to be quieter as well. Our petrol generator makes life a lot more comfortable when the power goes off, but its roar is not pleasant, particularly since it isn't a steady drone, but surges whenever there's a change to the electrical load (like a fridge compressor switching on). Another point in favour of a GPL generator is that they avoid the problem I had last month: engines don't appreciate it when you leave them sitting around unused with the same petrol in the fuel system for two years. I only managed to get the thing started after I had completely drained the fuel tank and line and refilled with new petrol. What jolly fun with the wind howling and snow flying all around. What made it even more enjoyable was the memory of how, over the last two years, I'd often looked at the damn thing and thought that I really should run it for a couple of minutes every month. Al

I have to say, this is the first time that you have 'suffered' since I have been around 3+ years! Things MUST have been bad! I have just been sitting in the sun by the side of the pool have a glass of bubbles and considering what we should do in preparation for 'next time'. I think it is difficult to decide, we could JUST get out of our track, we had an old phone that worked, we had a range of 'mickey mouse' candles, we had loads of logs for our stufe, food, water, beer, wine for weeks. BUT my gawd........we missed electricity. S

We regularly get little blips on the power line and we occasionally lose power for a few minutes, but it has been two years since we had an electric outage that lasted more than a couple of hours. That's a credit to the ENEL lineworkers, really, since even the most cursory examination of powerlines in Italy leads one to conclude that the network is hanging on an awful lot of wobbly nails (in some places, I suspect, literally so). Going without electricity for more than an hour or so in the midst of a blizzard is not something we're willing to put up with if we can possibly avoid it, not least because we have a young child and all three of the possible means we have to keep the house warm require electricity. Like you, Sprostoni, if we really had to, we could retreat: put chains on the car, drain down the house's plumbing, put down lots of dry food for the cats, load up all we need to keep us going for a few days and head off to someplace slighty warmer where the lights are still on. But the return journey would only happen when the snow had melted. However, it's nice if you're able to arrange things so you know that's not your only option and that you can survive with a reasonable degree of comfort (a highly variable measure) for a couple days when the leccy goes off yet again. Still, we would be hard-pressed to deal gracefully an outage the length of the one Sebastiano has had, not least because there's a limit to the amount of petrol I'm willing to have sitting around the place in plastic containers. Al

We've had landslides both on our property and on the road connecting to the property. Its amazing how the soil changes from being baked solid in summer to a semi solid slush with rain. The river below rose some 10m and really done damage to the roads as though they weren't bad enough before. One bridge was washed away not to mention 2 years worth of our firewood which we only fiished cutting and stacking one week before. Luckily theres been a few new trees wash up that  so we can salvage a little. Thats terrible news about the dogs.

Oh guys, so sorry to hear what a rotten time you have had - Jimmy/Sebastiano must have been a nightmare to be off so long, do hope you didnt have guests to worry about too and Maninmarche when I just told Mr Am the story of you losing all your wood he turned pale green and said he felt sick. Dylano I think will be connected again finally this eve after friends called enel as they have done every day and enel realised finally they had been missed out and were heading there about 10pm. She is now currently in the Uk but her husband has been stuck in the dark here for almost a week - no phone, no internet no telly no lights, bloomin miserable. Unbelievably the enel guy had no idea how to find them and had to call to get directions - why do these guys not have satnavs - surely a €50 spend would save hours of wasted time and therefore much money too - grr makes me mad. I have the same issue with the fedex/spa delivery cos, they claim they cannot find us -  had a message on jan 6 that all my xmas presents were in an 'oven in via ricci' no village mentioned and took me a while to realise it was the bakers in monte san martino who had kindly taken in our parcels..If it was me doing that job I'd buy myself the bloomin gps - what is wrong with em, sigh, multo bizarro when life could be so much easier. Those gas generators sound well worth investigating, if anyone finds out more pls pass the info on  - we are currently investigating generators and small independent PV systems. Sympathies to all who have had tough times and hope no one else currently shivering in darkness. Am

i know its italy but there will be some forms of compensation if the regional government manages to get the state of emergency declared officially.. so suggest that it will be worth it for a while to keep an eye on posters outside the local comune .. at least and if you have serious problems and losses talk to a technical officer and get it all recorded photos ..etc.. and invoices.. i know not much help now.. but a few weeks down the road might help a bit.. re gpl generatoprs.. i would think they are far cheaper to run than petrol.. diesel is almost impossible to start by hand unless you are in very good shape..  only knowing anything about gpl from a car system and maybe they are improved in some way.. the engine is basically a petrol engine so no real change in sound.. but exhaust is clean.. however my undrestanding is or was to start the engine at least on the car it fires up on petrol.. then switches automatically to gas.... so it would still reult in problems re old fuel..  we always run the tank vurtually dry and for sure the carb to empty that.. then add in fresh petrol which mixes with the bit thats left.. we always ..touch wood have it around because all the machines we have run on it..  so if you have gardens or land its pretty nromal to keep a 30-40 litre supply and if you have major amounts of land i would think getting a generator for the pto on the tractor might be a  good option.. however to me a simple cheap solution that gives you a 3 kw supply for rare emergencies ..and they are pretty rare is simple and really apart from making sure your house only has one input supply at a time is easy , cheap, whatever system you choose  and whatever the constraints of exhaust..running costs and noise will be far bettr than even a day without hotwater and heating in the midst of winter... saying all that glad to hear no stories of anyone injured so at least there is something to be thankful for and bright blue skys for the last two days here have made it all seem a bit of a distant nightmare.. with all the other big news stories these days its already off the headlines.. although they are still mentioning the amount of business properties destroyed along the coast of the marche.. to be honest we are located in an area that had no problems.. although a couple of trees were down that morning of the worst rain..but it had been cleared by the time of the school bus.. but the news and pictures were scarey and the deaths of the dogs was something that makes you feel so bad..  the survivors of that will be even more skittish than the normal rescue animal here.. 

power was a VERY long time !!!!  Thanks to Ameretto and v clever italian speaking friend James we survived and power came back last night at 8.00pm. Sorry, havn't read all this thread yet but will do.  Sorry for others and animale badly affected. Dx

Welcome back! We were all worried.

As some info only now is available on what went on over the last ten days.it turns out that ENEL had to bring into parts of the prov. of fermo and ascoli 45 big 100kw generators.until yesterday our supply which returned only last saturday has been coming from one of these whilst the lines were repaired.it turns out that "our" generator was consuming 4.5 quintali of diesel a day (450kg.) so no wonder they were in a hurry to repair the lines.However other problems have started to emerge.Whilst they have managed to clear the two landslips blocking two of our access roads large potentially dangerous cracks have started to appear on these roads of which a part has collapsed and whilst movement continues could close a number of roads in the area.this just at a moment in which local authorities (comuni/provincie) don't have the resources to face these big jobs.one of my neighbours 84 yrs it appears will have to leave his house which could be swept away shortly if this big landslide continues to form this would mean that the S.P.239 -FERMO-AMANDOLA could be closed presumably for several months (just above the turn off for Monte San Martino)will inform later on developments as it also means we'll hardly be able to get out either.....

  Gosh, I never realised that it rains so much in that region. Hope you are all re-connected and back to ‘normal’ again.

Hi Sebastiano. Saw from your comment earlier, that there was a threat of the above being cut off. Have traveled it today, as had to go to the dentist near Porto San Giorgio. Road all seems okay and could not identify to which point you were referring.