Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – “Mom, help, I'm so scared. But don't come here, I don't want you to get hurt.” On the other end of the line is her 12-year-old son. He's terrified, hearing only the screams of his classmates and the force of the wind battering the school windows. Yet, amidst that fear, he thinks of his mother.
He fears that she might reach him and get involved.
It's a morning like many others. Marta Adamo is the mother of three children, aged 18, 12, and 10. The two youngest attend the Alcide De Gasperi school in Marsala, a branch of Terrenueve. She drove them to school like every day, before driving to work, about twenty kilometers away.
The husband was working from home today. Then, around 8:30 a.m., the sky turns gray, the rain becomes very heavy, and two vortices rip through the streets.
The fury of the tornado hitting the Trapani area also erupted into the school, hurling objects, destroying fixtures, and even tearing off metal window frames. Marta Adamo, who didn't experience those moments firsthand, told Adnkronos, but spent them on the phone, listening to her children's terrified voices and desperately trying to protect them.
“The desks were moving, papers were flying. It looked like a bomb had exploded.”
The first call comes from his eldest son, who is 18 and driving to the gym. It's that very car that, shortly afterward, becomes a victim of the storm. "He was driving, then the wind started to drag him and swept the car away. He let go of the wheel, put his hands on his head, and saw the car spin. It flipped sideways. He managed to get out and was unharmed. He was covered in dirt, mud, and dust. But unharmed." The car—the one shown in the photo—is now "destroyed, but he's safe. That's all I care about."
Marta doesn't yet have time to realize what's happened to her eldest child when another call comes in. This time it's her 12-year-old son, from school. "He called me to explain what was happening, but all I could hear was his worry and the screams of the other kids. He was scared, but he wanted to save me; he was thinking only of me. I told him to go near the teacher, to stay with her." Her thoughts immediately turn to the younger child, 10, who is in the same school. "I asked him to go check on his brother, but he told me he couldn't, because there was only chaos. He couldn't find him."
Marta recounts that in those few moments of lucidity, she left her son to try to call her husband, who "was already heading to school." At that moment, no one was safe. "Those five minutes were exhausting. I couldn't breathe." Inside the building, meanwhile, the children were being forced to move into the corridor to seek shelter. Everything around them was shaking. Desks were flying and hitting the children's heads. And amidst that uncontrollable fear, the little ones instinctively tried to protect each other. "They shielded each other. They hugged each other to protect themselves from the uncontrolled wind. These are scenes I can't get out of my head." A gesture of "heartbreaking" tenderness that captures the essence of what they experienced in those moments that lasted an eternity.
Her husband rushes to school. He walks almost a kilometer and finds himself faced with an apocalyptic scene: overturned cars, garbage, and damage everywhere. The fury of the wind has destroyed a neighborhood. When the children manage to get out, they are covered in dust and mud. Some have suffered injuries and bruises: one complains of pain in his wrist, another has a blow to the head. The teacher, according to Marta, also has a cut on her face. "It was a massacre for her too. She said she couldn't protect everyone. This breaks my heart: they were children, they found themselves in the middle of something bigger than themselves." Even outside the school, the scene is one of war. Marta recounts an elderly couple in their car that overturned, ending up in a ravine near the school. The children's backpacks were left inside the building. Firefighters recovered them. Their parents are making plans to go and get them. As she speaks, Marta is still shaking. The tension hasn't gone away; it remains in her body, in her hands, in her voice, which at times breaks with tears. Next to her is her eldest son, who approaches and asks if everything's okay. "Don't worry, it's just the tension I'm letting off steam," she tells him.
Then, he catches his breath. “My children have always asked me what I’m afraid of. I’ve always said I’m not afraid of anything. The only thing I’m afraid of is that something bad might happen to them.” He pauses again. “It happened today.” Then, he breathes in relief. “But they’re here with me.” And he breathes.
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