Even before the tremors in mid-September 1976,
it had become clear to many that it would be impossible to return to repaired
homes before winter. The desire to move “directly from tents to houses”, as one
of the early reconstruction slogans put it, could not be fulfilled.
Above all, it was the opposition political
forces who called for realism, asking that tents be replaced with caravans,
mobile homes and transportable houses, so that the earthquake victims could get
through the winter. Once the tourist season had ended in Lignano, on the
Friulian coast, many holiday homes would be available. Despite the ongoing
seismic activity, or perhaps because people were beginning to adapt to the
tremors, the Friulian population was reluctant to abandon their homes. Those
who were able to do so accepted hospitality from relatives and friends outside
Friuli, although resistance to moving away remained strong.
After the new, violent shocks of September 11,
the Mayor of Gemona, Ivano Benvenuti, declared: «I will try to make the
population understand that this is not about sending them away. But the
prefabricated units are not arriving, and it is absolutely impossible to remain
under the tents». Benvenuti asked the Prefect to allow the use of 6,000 places
in the hotels of Lignano, where entrepreneurs had been alerted during the
summer. The Veneto Region made an additional 10,000 beds available in seaside
resorts, hotels, care homes, and holiday camps in Jesolo and Bibione.
Meanwhile, the energy company ENI provided 100 small villas at its Borca di
Cadore tourist complex in the province of Belluno for the winter.. The villas
offered accommodation for 600 people, and ENI organised social and school
assistance for those displaced by the earthquake. The whole of Italy mobilised
to provide shelter for the disaster victims and help them get through the
winter. In Bologna, Mayor Zangheri appealed to citizens to express their
willingness to host families from Friuli.
On September 13, two days before the next major
earthquake, Zamberletti was recalled and again appointed Special Government
Commissioner for the earthquake-stricken Friuli area, with broader powers, due
to the Region and the Municipalities not being able to resolve the problem of
homelessness. The outcome of Giulio Andreotti’s visit to Gemona earlier in the
month, on September 3, also came into play when the head of government was
questioned about the delays that had occurred. Zamberletti was effectively entrusted
with providing adequate shelter for the tens of thousands of people still
living under tents in prefabricated units before winter, marking a transition
from the relief phase to the reconstruction phase. He was granted full
authority to act «in derogation of all laws, including those on the general
accounting of the State» (Article 1 of Italian Legislative Decree no.
648/1976).
With the shock of September 15, events
precipitated and the hypothesis of an exodus forcefully resurfaced. Zamberletti
identified seaside or mountain tourist locations, equipped with adequate
accommodation facilities, as evacuation areas where the establishment of
operational coordination centres, referred to as “Assistance Departments”, was
to be envisaged. To enable the “voluntary” exodus, military vehicles shuttled
dozens of times a day between the destroyed towns and these locations.
To give greater force to the initiative, on
September 24 the Special Commissioner ordered the mayors of the Municipalities
of Jesolo, Caorle and Bibione-San Michele al Tagliamento (in Veneto), Lignano
Sabbiadoro, Grado, and Ravascletto (in Friuli Venezia Giulia) to requisition
“for use” until March 31 1977 the «currently unoccupied dwellings», through a
summary procedure, with notification by posting a notice on the entrance door
of the dwelling. The requisition of hotels had already been mooted by Francesco
Cossiga, a few days after the May 6 shock, together with the possibility of
housing 5,000 homeless people on the ocean liners Michelangelo and Raffaello,
ready to sail from Genoa to Trieste.
One week later, on October 1, the displaced
persons already registered and housed elsewhere numbered about 31,000: over
18,000 in Lignano, more than 5,000 in Grado, 4,575 in Bibione, about 1,800 in
Jesolo, 500 in Caorle, and 360 in Ravascletto. It was then specified that the
measure referred to «dwellings not inhabited by people resident in the
municipality where the dwelling is located», and to the six settlements
concerned by the measure, a further four were added: Forni Avoltri, Forni di
Sopra, Forni di Sotto, and Rigolato, all under the jurisdiction of the
Ravascletto Assistance Department.
«It was a challenge», Zamberletti acknowledged
in an interview in 2016, «so much so that the Government was perplexed in the
face of such a close deadline […]. We requisitioned all holiday homes until
March of the following year, recognising the owners a rent determined by the
tax office. In the apartments, we settled families, distributing them into
departments in such a way as to keep residents of the same Municipality and
school groups close together. Non-self-sufficient elderly people were instead housed
in hotels, which received a per-capita fee». There were also those who did not
ask for help and preferred to pay out of their own pockets. «In the seaside
locations», Zamberletti also recalled, «we had grouped the communities together
and even recreated the school classes». Despite this, «the people of Carnia, of
Resia and Resiutta did not want to go: “we will never be able to return”, they
kept repeating». The document drawn up on October 1 by the Coordination Centre
of the earthquake-affected towns bore the heading Pâr no’ murî a Lignàn” (So
as not to die in Lignano), clearly shows the fear that evacuees had of never
making their way back home. In the document, the displaced people complained
about living conditions in the seaside town, as well as the difficulties of
maintaining connections with the earthquake-stricken towns and villages.
On November 5 1976, the national public
broadcasting company RAI aired a television report in which the journalist
Bruno Vespa recounted this exodus and reported its figures. In Lignano
Sabbiadoro, for example, which had a population of 5,000 in winter and 150,000
in summer, the «colossal hotel infrastructure» reportedly «withstood the impact
of 20,000 refugees» in September without difficulty. Some hotel owners and
dozens of private homeowners spontaneously offered hospitality to those made
homeless. Smaller family units were accommodated in hotels, while larger
families were housed in apartments, preferably on the ground or first floor, as
people shaken by the tremors were afraid to live at height.
A report by the Municipality of Lignano
Sabbiadoro reconstructs in detail the phases of the accommodation of the
displaced persons. Already in the late morning of September 14, it reads, the
managers of all tourist agencies were summoned to secure accommodation. They
cooperated «without the threat of requisitions or measures of any other kind»,
taking responsibility for granting the use of dwellings even without the
authorisation of individual owners. In this way, the Municipality managed to be
prepared when, within a few days, thousands of people poured into the seaside
resort. To deal with the emergency, the municipal executive confirmed all staff
from the summer season and hired additional personnel. Offices were organised
for the sourcing of accommodation, the handling of bureaucratic formalities,
and the allocation of dwellings. Municipal police officers were assigned the
task of accompanying families to their allocated accommodation. Through this
organisation, by October 26, the report states, 5,227 family units were
accommodated in the same number of apartments, for a total of 19,330 people. Of
interest is the comparison with the temporary presence of earthquake victims at
the Friulian Assistance Agency (Ente Friulano di Assistenza - EFA), a facility that
in those days also hosted assistance staff and military personnel, which on
September 21 reached a peak of 1,095 guests and within a few days fell to 9,
once accommodation had been found for all displaced persons.
On the ground floors of the buildings in the
seaside town, shops closed at the end of the season were cleared to accommodate
the delegations of the hosted Municipalities. Town assemblies were organised in
one of the cinemas. Primary school classes were reconstituted in the tourist
locations. That winter, in the new school building in Lignano, more than one
thousand students were recorded, including 718 who had arrived from the
earthquake-affected towns. New forms of teaching were tested in order to accommodate
all pupils.
There was also an effort to recreate
neighbourhood relations. The Luna residence in Lignano City hosted a community
of 600 people from the Municipality of Artegna. The chaplain, Don Angelo
Zanello, recalled having organised the exodus of his community in agreement
with the mayor: «We moved with the buses, but we obtained guarantees that
communication routes would be maintained with the evacuated areas where the
factories were located. Every morning, buses full of workers left Lignano very
early».
However, if in Lignano, as the RAI report
pointed out, there was no need to requisition any accommodation, in Grado,
instead, where 6,500 earthquake victims were hosted, resistance was strong.
There were street demonstrations, and Zamberletti had to proceed with the
requisition of almost all of the 1,651 apartments required. In Jesolo as well,
the chronicles report, extensive requisitions were carried out. In the seaside
or climatic resorts of Veneto, 3,300 of the 8,400 apartments that would
eventually be occupied by Friulians who had lost their homes were recovered in
this way.
With Zamberletti’s plan, on the arrival of
winter, more than 32,000 homeless people found shelter in tourist locations. A
further 30,000 people remained in the devastated areas, accommodated in huts
and precarious housing, 10,000 of these still in tents and caravans. Eighteen
thousand people found hospitality with relatives and acquaintances, many
outside the region and abroad.
In the RAI reportage, images follow one another
of children playing near residential towers and of elderly people walking on
the sand, in front of the seafront terrace, the beach offices, and the closed
bars. Interviewees recount that «we live with our nostalgia, for the town we
have left behind, for memories, for the dead, for the loved ones we have lost».
But, as the voice-over states, «no one complains, no one protests, yet the
weight of memories accompanies every gesture of the day».
The following year, 1977, became known as the
year of the construction of ‘Temporary Friuli’, with prefabricated units
providing accommodation for families returning ‘from the beaches’ at the start
of summer.