2 new systems for underpasses at risk of flooding are under construction

CAE, as subcontractor of the company Calcestruzzi Corradini S.p.A., is responsible for the construction of two new early warning systems for underpasses at risk of flooding for the Province of Reggio Emilia; in particular, one was installed a few days ago for a railway underpass, located in via Europa, in S. Ilario d’Enza and the second one, located in via Rinaldi, in Reggio Emilia, will be installed soon.

The two systems have the same structure and operating characteristics: they are fully automatic systems, which have the objective of constantly monitoring the underpasses to instantly detect the possible presence and accumulation of water in the subway. Each system consists of a station with CompactPlus datalogger, to which three piezometric level sensors will be connected, to be located inside the underpass, to measure if a critical threshold of water on the road surface has been exceeded. The presence of these three sensors will activate the alert state when the level threshold set for at least two of them is exceeded, in order to minimise the risk of false alarms.

Each system will also be equipped with two traffic lights, which are activated when the thresholds are exceeded, with underpass flood danger warning panels and with a high-definition camera to visually monitor the situation of the underpass by taking and sending photos to the operating centre. In “peacetime”, sending is scheduled, but the frequency of the changes increases in the face of changes of scenario; therefore, in critical moments, operators will be able to remotely keep an eye on the alert situation. In addition, depending on the status of the system at a given time, alarm/pre-alarm/attention signals may be generated and sent via SMS, to people in charge of managing emergencies including, for example, the Municipality, Fire Brigade, Civil Protection, Road junction management bodies. 

The acquisition and visualisation software provided by CAE can already be configured appropriately to also manage data on the operation of water lifting systems (electric pumps) that can be connected to the CompactPlus dataloggers. 

In order to access station data, it will be sufficient for operators to access the datalogger from PC or mobile devices through any browser. 

The Province of Reggio Emilia, which is not at its first experience with installations of this type, is confirmed as an institution that is very attentive to the issue of prevention and that invests in the safety of its population.