We explore the famous abandoned house of the head office of the Santa Chiara dam on Lake Omodeo, called by some the “caretaker's house”.
Built between 1917 and 1924 a few steps from the dam to house the foreman, the deputy chief and their families, it was abandoned in 1997 after the inauguration of the new dam further downstream, higher and with a larger basin, which involved a raising of the water level. Thus the valley was submerged and everything, extinct animals, tropical forest, remains of Zuri, disappeared forever under the water. Almost.
Every so often, when the water level drops, the past comes out: the petrified forest, some nuraghe, light poles and even what is called the house of the foreman or by some "the caretaker's house".
From above, motorists probably do not notice anything, also because for most of the year the building is almost completely covered by water.
It was a beautiful two-story villa surrounded by a garden with a pond, an orchard, palm trees and a banana tree.
The building consisted of two perfectly symmetrical apartments: on the ground floor the kitchen with fireplace, a lounge, a small living room and a closet where the telephone was located (connected to the Tirso central); on the second floor there are four bedrooms and a bathroom, and an attic above.
Two girls were born in this house: Antonia Tilocca, daughter of the then head of plant Proto Tilocca, born in 1930, and Lucia Pisano, daughter of the deputy head of plant, in 1940.
We mention the names because we can also show the faces of the Tilocca family (thanks to Antonia's son, Ivan, whom we thank) in these beautiful photographs that document life on the dam at that time and also the damage caused by the torpedoes that hit the dam in 1941 (out of three two scored, one stopped due to a propeller failure) and the bombs of 1943. Yes, tennis was also played at the dam!
On the opposite side from the head office's house, higher up and therefore not disappeared under the water, there is another building, now decidedly vandalized, which in the past housed the carabinieri of Ulà Tirso and subsequently the keepers of the dam.
After the 1963 Vajont accident, the safety measures in the dams increased. The keepers of the Santa Chiara dam worked 3 shifts of 8 hours to cover the whole day and carry out security checks on a daily basis.
It is also for this reason that every morning at 10 in all risk areas (practically all of Oristano) the sirens previously used only during the Second World War sounded: it was a test that meant "everything is OK". If the sirens had sounded at another time it would have meant that something had happened to the dam and that the villages near the Tirso were immediately evacuated.
On the history of the dam and its sinking there is a beautiful documentary by Franco Taviani, “Adiosu dam addio”, not to be confused with our Adiosu.
Where it is: Lake Omodeo, not far from there is the village of Santa Chiara, where the employees of the Sardinian Electric Company lived.
LINKS AND INSIGHTS
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🎵 Track Info:
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Minor With Cricket by Audionautix (audionautix.com)
is part of the RU-vid Audio Library (ru-vid.com...)
and it's licensed under a Creative Commons license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
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26 окт 2021
