RIO RUDAN
Protection from debris flows

The system, delivered in early may, showed an excellent responsiveness to the first real life test. Some nocturnal signs had been noticed by the supervisor in the Siap+Micros technical assistance center in San Fior (TV) who, on Saturday morning had promptly issued a notice to the municipality of Vodo di Cadore, to the Genio Civile and to Arpa Veneto protection authority. A tensioning spike on one of the cables along the Rudan creek gully indicated some initial debris movement. Late in the afternoon, following another strong storm at high altitude, the debris began to accumulate and accelerate downstream. Here the alarm was launched automatically by the Siap+Micros data loggers. You can see on YouTube a time-lapse  of the frames recorded by the webcam on the bridle before and after the arrival of the debris flow.

As planned, the traffic lights on the cycle path and in via Marconi immediately turned red. The siren placed on the bell tower has started to sound to warn the citizens of Peajo of the danger. The mayor, Domenico Belfi, who was already monitoring the situation through the webcams placed on the detection stations along the stream and on the bridle, immediately went to the place. «The debris came down in waves», says Belfi, «and we temporarily closed the road. I called the civil protection group as well as the volunteer firefighters from Borca-Vodo. Councilor Nicola De Lorenzo went to the bridge of the cycle path to make sure that no one passed despite the traffic light being red. Having stabilized the situation, I turned off the siren ». (Read the article published in the Corriere delle Alpi on Sunday 30 August 2020).

After the alarm, the regional councilor for civil protection Gianpaolo Bottacin also promptly intervened.

We were pleased for the perfect functioning of the system and now we’ll work immediately for the restoration. The bulldozers are already working on the bridle to remove debris.