Lake Garda Flood Recovery to Receive Up to €3 Billion by April

Two and a half to three billion euros will arrive by the end of April to repair the damages suffered by the lakeside towns during the late November flood. This assurance comes from the Regional Assessor for Civil Protection and Soil Defense Massimo Giorgetti, shortly after he met with all seven mayors of the municipalities facing the Veronese coast of Lake Garda.

The assessor had announced a few days earlier to L’Arena that he aimed to «meet all the mayors to personally review the damage assessments and discuss the financial reports submitted in the Region». And that is exactly what happened.

From Malcesine to Brenzone, Torre, Garda, Bardolino, Lazise, and Peschiera, each mayor had the opportunity to separately present the reports prepared by their technical offices and submitted to Venice at the end of the year.

For about ten days, around November and December 2000, the lakeside villages were submerged by water that reached as high as 173 centimeters above the zero reference point at Peschiera.

This was due to the heavy rainfall in those days, but primarily because of the delay in deciding to activate the Salionze dam at maximum capacity to release the Garda towards the Mincio River.

This decision had enraged the mayors and sparked significant controversy over the reasons why the waters of Lake Garda were not allowed to drain more freely.