Robert Geipel, Director of the Geographical Institute - 'Technical University of Monaco, set up and carried out a series of investigations on the ground aiming to "help the reconstruction of a region that maintains very close ties with the southern Germany area and which has been so severely affected by the earthquake disaster". The study was developed in the context of a project promoted by the German research Council, and its value can be analized from two different points of view. First of all, he gave a new meaning to social geography. The German geographers who participated to the initiative came in direct contact with the suffering people, sought and obtained the cooperation of the University of Udine with whom they shared solidarity and (multi) disciplinary guidelines.

Secondly, he analyzed the issues of the catastrophe and rebirth in a more general context. The different steps and timing of the reconstruction were compared with similar cases that wew already under investigation in order to evaluate analytically the success or failure of the actions taken in Friuli according to as objective as possible parameters.

Holger Hochgurtel - according to a theory inductively derived mainly from the earthquake in San Francisco (1906) and the one occurred in Alaska (1964) - underlined four different stages when overcoming a catastrophe: emergency, temporary recovery, substitutive reconstruction, improving reconstruction. He admitted - according to the same theoretical scheme - that every moment of the process would last ten times longer than the previous one, and that the reactivation of social life could thus five hundred weeks, about ten years, in the case of an earthquake like the one in Friuli.

In few words, the Bavarian research group whose Hochgurtel belonged, concluding a research that had lasted from 1976 to 1988, wondered if the rebirth of Friuli had been completed successfully and within a reasonable time. The final assessment – largely positive – based itself on the disaster theory which formalized the recovery times and the sequence of decisions to be taken, pointing out for the first time how these four moments of reconstruction could be "experimentally" verified, since the Extraordinary Secretariat had handled the largest part of the funds through an exact accounting of expenditure groups. Hochgurtel then identified the theoretical stages with the disbursement of funds for approximative repairs, anti-earthquake repairs, new reconstructions, repairs or reconstructions of public buildings. The systematic adoption of the graphs drawn up by the Secretariat undoubtedly confirmed the quality of the overall management of the reconstruction, and the ability to control the critical moments of the recovery process.

The graph - taken from Hochgurtel (1990) - is here reproducted from the presentation held by E. Chiavola at the International Seminar on the earthquake in Friuli, Udine on February 5th, 1986 in the Palace of the Province.

Key: 17 = L. R. 17 of 7.6.1976; 30 = L. R. 30 of 06.20.1977; 63 = L. R. 63, 23.12.1977; OP = Public Works; AD = Activity Direct the Secretariat according to L.R. 35 of 04.07.1979.

The team of technicians organized by Chiavola actively collaborated with the German researchers, with whom they shared the social tension of the empirical investigations and the use of advanced methodological tools in data processing.

Scientific results and practical implications at all levels met and intertwined thanks to the fact that the two groups perceived the problem of reconstruction as a challenge aiming to mitigate the effects of disasters, in Friuli and elsewhere.

The development of a general franwork for civil protection based on a specific patrimony of experiences is already present in the materials of the Secretariat. However the institution did not sacrifice the specificity of events and the complexity of the political choices to the theory. Although the investigation of the Bavarian researchers maintained close contacts with the territory, emphasizing its peculiarities, they recognized an operational scheme, whose value was not limited to the local case, to be found in the regional charts, which illustrated the expenses of the rebirth step by step.

From this point of view one could say that "Friuli project" and "Friuli model" - as Geipel and Di Sopra titled and structured their studies – were to be considered as one. The idea of a (relative) universality of reaction times to the catastrophe was intended to guide the actions that a community - according to its economical and political forces - can and should take in the face of unpredictable events.

Even in cultural terms, it seems unfair to accuse the incapacity and incompetence of the public institutions in their interventions, and wills or abuses by regional politicians without any meditated evidences. For once, we should instead conclude that the complaints and the clichés brought forth by counterinformation were overcome by the intelligence and the civil action of the official representatives.

Traduzione di Maria Cristina Davanzo.
Tommaso Mazzoli

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