The Civil Protection bulletin that is closing schools in Genoa

The criticality bulletin issued by the Department of Civil Protection on October 19, 2026 at 15:17 forecasts, for Tuesday, October 20, an orange alert for storms in the Liguria maritime basins of Central and Western Liguria and in the Liguria-Po basins of Western Liguria. The same document declares an orange alert for hydrogeological risk in the Liguria maritime basins of Central Liguria and in the Liguria-Po basins of Western Liguria. Alongside the orange alert, the bulletin indicates a yellow alert in sectors of Emilia-Romagna, Lazio, Liguria, Piedmont, Sardinia, Tuscany and Umbria.

The document is an administrative risk-forecasting instrument, not a scientific study: it therefore does not report a sample, an experimental method or declared conflicts of interest, categories proper to research published in journals. Its intrinsic limitation lies in the very nature of the tool: it classifies risk by homogeneous zones — the so-called river basins — and not by individual municipality or neighborhood, and it is valid for a short time window. The October 19 bulletin in fact covers only the day of the 20th, and is meant to be updated daily: already on Monday, heavy rainfall was indicated as expected also for October 21 over eastern Liguria and the Triveneto, a sign that every bulletin captures a provisional situation, superseded by the next one.

On the level of news coverage, attention has focused almost exclusively on Liguria and, in particular, on Genoa: Sky TG24 reports that schools of every level in the city will remain closed on Tuesday, October 20 due to the orange alert, and that the bad weather will mainly hit the North-West, Piedmont and the Tyrrhenian coast. This framing, while correct, leaves in the background the yellow alert that the national bulletin extends to seven different regions — not just Liguria — a detail that the news about the closure of Genoa’s schools does not convey to the reader.

The bulletin currently has two independent sources confirming its contents: the official document from the Department of Civil Protection and the report by Sky TG24, which adds the specific measure on the closure of schools in Genoa. The full text of the bulletin can be consulted on the Civil Protection’s mapping platform.

It matters because the criticality bulletin is the tool with which mayors and prefects decide concrete measures — such as school closures — based on a risk classification by zones, not by individual streets or buildings: anyone living in a municipality classified under an orange alert does not get, from the bulletin alone, an indication of exactly what will happen on their own street, but a level of attention that local authorities then translate into specific measures.