In the reconstruction-rebirth of Friuli hit by the earthquake, it is particularly surprising how the regional Government was able to overcome – during a period of ten years and without any references - the harsh times that the recovery process presented. The courage and constancy with which the administration ruled the assaults of counter-information should also be underlined. Comelli, President of the Region, had to react according to the law to the (nonsensical) charges of "reconstruction betrayed" that the "Corriere della Sera" uttered as early as July 1976. The charges of indolence, incompetence and worse, that the Extraordinary General Secretariat had daily undergone, threatened the operational capacity of a structure which was necessarily bound to fail in its task, according to its detractors, because of its belonging to the public sphere. The Belice syndrome, the tragedy of emergency and the "delays" in the prefabricated housing phase could partly justify these attitudes of absolute distrust and radical criticism. In fact, if on one hand they constituted an objective obstacle to the recovery due to the aggressiveness with which they had been expressed, on the other they revealed the anxieties and fears that accompanied the process of rebirth.

It's important to keep this in mind when we look back to Extraordinary General Secretariat's initiatives. As the difficulties of single reconstruction stages were discussed and resolved, these actions led to the convinction that some solutions conveyed elements of general value, which transcended the specific Friuli case and could help overcome other similar disasters. The task of the Region, leaving aside the creation of the Civil Protection, was - even in this respect - basically fulfilled and repeatedly acknowledged internationally.