Happened to be driving through Italy during the latest torrential rains, and caught couple of snapshots (e.g. this one taken near Foggia) of the clouds that were(?) part of the system causing the flooding in the Marche.

We ended up overnighting less than 10km from the worst(?) hit town (Senigallia), and while being impressed by the weather and its ability to knock out telecommunication, the full impact became apparent only when we saw the news.

One thought that remained: while driving I was on a lookout for flooding, landslides etc. - probably more than an average person since getting involved with DRIHM. Still, it was very difficult to gauge to what degree one should be prepared to take evasive actions (and where to). Lack of cccess to information was also something I noticed much more than usually..

Dear Matti

indeed some update information in nearly real-time was available on online versions of newspaper as for example

www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2014/05/03/new...mo_vittime-85122551/

but limited to the italian language.

Furthermore some pictures were posted on twitter

www.rainews.it/dl/rainews/media/Alluvion...f2-37ccb86e75e8.html

More later

Antonio

Hi Antonio,

Thank you for the links! I think the "limited to Italian language" brings up an interesting point, there are linguistic challenges in not only gathering and analysing the data, but also in communicating the results of the analysis to relevant people in a language that is relevant to them.

Regarding the specific case of TMC traffic messages (that seems to be operational in Italy), perhaps in this case the flooding was through to be localised and not warranting a broader warning (or our cheap GPS received didn't know which radio station to listen to)?

Best regards,

Matti

PS. I found the security discussion on the same wikipedia page quite interesting, perhaps explaining partly why TMC may not be the best choice for communicating disaster risks.

Hello Matti

my guess is that your cheap GPS didn't know which radio station to listen to

Thanks

Antonio

Hi Antonio,

Very likely, considering some of the routes(*) we found ourselves in Croatia and Southern Italy.

Matti

(*) It seemed to have an egalitarian approach to roads in some areas, a single-lane gravel road was recommended over a motorway. Of course changes to gravel roads trickle to the maps with some delay. Triggered many jokes along the lines "lost - very lost - absolutely Garmined"...

We just received a contribution related to this event in the flickr pool:

www.flickr.com/photos/pernin/14193906779...ol-hydro_meteorology

The link from the photo page is also worth a look (number of additional photos)!