NORCIA. Mrs. Carla Grandolini is 83 years old and her heart is beating fast. The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella is about to arrive on the open space in front of the Sae di lei in Norcia, she is happy but also intimidated. “I won’t tell him anything, I don’t know what I could ask for,” she confesses. But when the president begins to parade among the prefabricated houses, it is precisely from Signora Carla who stops, shakes her hand and it is he who asks: “What does he want?”. The lady remains silent for a few moments while the president continues to hold her hand. What could a woman want who during the earthquake of 24 August 2016 lost the rooms where she spent 60 years of life and raised 4 children?
“I want my home,” he replies. The president nods: “He’s right, the house is important.” It is the same desire of the few inhabitants of Norcia who are lucky enough to be able to speak for a few seconds with the President of the Republic. Sergio Scuto asks him “faster times”, his wife Isabella “simpler procedures”. Mattarella listens to everyone and urges the authorities present. “We need to get back to normal soon.” It is the reason why he chose Norcia as the first visit of the new seven-year-old, a task that he wants to carry out by indicating to the politics that he has chosen to make him stay at the Quirinale which are the priorities to deal with. The reconstruction of the areas destroyed by the earthquake in Central Italy is one of these. He knows that we are working but that we need to do it faster, that there are still many obstacles to overcome. For some time now the Rinascita di Norcia Committee has been sending him detailed letters to update him on the difficulties. The latest was a week ago to ask him for a meeting while visiting the city. They would like to talk to him about the reconstruction “which is struggling to materialize especially as regards the public works still to be started”. They would like to tell him to be wary “of those who tell you that everything is fine. Unfortunately this is not the case. Too often we feel abandoned ».
All is not well, explains the spokesman of the Committee Lorenzo Delle Grotti: «For almost six years, children and adolescents have been going to school in prefabricated buildings and have no gyms. There is no hospital and therefore we suffer great inconvenience when we have a health problem. And we are witnessing a strong cultural impoverishment, valuable paintings, works of art, the Historical Archive have been taken away and who knows when they will return ». The Committee was unable to meet the President of the Republic but obtained a meeting in the afternoon with the Extraordinary Commissioner for Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Giovanni Legnini, who has held the post for two years and moved a machine that seemed to have stalled.
“The simplifications of the legislation and procedures for obtaining public grants for the repair or reconstruction of houses damaged by the earthquake, launched in 2020, have had a very evident positive impact on the reconstruction in the four regions of Central Italy”, says the commissioner. underlining that in 2021 there were 5200 decrees of contributions issued and construction sites open, as many as in the previous four years. With the Special Ordinances in derogation, in 2021 there was also a doubling of expenditure for public works, which increased to 559 million euros from 265 in 2020. The public works financed with the Ordinances already issued are 1,907, to which 3,171 thousand are added. to finance. 925 churches and religious buildings are financed, another 1,584 interventions are to be financed. For schools, a special plan has been defined and already approved for the reconstruction of all the buildings in the four regions affected by the earthquake, taking advantage of the exceptions that can be activated with the special ordinances. The interventions concern 457 school buildings with a total cost of 1.3 billion euros. «However – underlined Legnini during the visit of President Mattarella to Norcia – new, unforeseen difficulties must not be ignored, due to the anomalous trend in the prices of raw materials and the saturation of the building market. We are facing this new challenge, with the necessary contribution of all those involved in reconstruction ».