Bad weather emergency

Cyclone Harry: over 2 billion in damage and risk of GDP decline for Sicily, Calabria and Sardinia

Companies and activities destroyed in Sicily, Sardinia and Calabria. Tourism and agriculture the hardest hit sectors. The alarm of businesses: we must act now, almost 2 billion in possible further damage due to the halt in production activities. The node of reimbursement for catastrophic policies

by Nino Amadore

4 February 2026

In Calabria. Tante le zone costiere della regione colpite dalle mareggiate legate al ciclone Harry. Foto IPP - Antonio Moniaci/ LiveMedia Catanzaro

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

PALERMO - The sea has taken everything: the beach, the houses, the lidos, the roads. And it threatens to take hope too. Because the disaster is there for all to see. In Sicily, Cyclone Harry has hit hard: from Messina to Capo Passero but also in western Sicily, with greater intensity in the Messina and Catania areas (including the capital).

La Sicilia affonda, ma il Ponte non si tocca

Basically, tourism Sicily is in a mess. It is necessary to start from here to do the maths, to understand what needs to be done today to salvage what can be saved, to get the tourism shack back on its feet, to avoid the disaster having long-term consequences with tourists abandoning their destination Sicily never to return.

But the same applies to Calabria and Sardinia. And the same goes for other sectors: agriculture in primis. The total estimate of the damage in the three regions is now around two billion, but the figure is fluctuating: at the end of the last meeting of the Cabina di regia set up by the President of the Sicilian Region, Renato Schifani, the damage estimate was just over one billion. But it is clear that the bill is destined to grow.

Maltempo in Sicilia, Schifani: "Regione e Stato insieme per affrontare l'emergenza"

There is another account to be made, however, and it concerns the Gross Domestic Product, especially if action is not taken quickly to restart production activities: the real economic impact of Cyclone Harry must be sought in the loss of production flows. In highly seasonal economies, some of the lost added value does not return in the following months. This is why, over and above the direct damage estimated by the regions, Cyclone Harry risks translating into a loss of GDP in 2026 of between 0.8% and over 1% in the most exposed areas: which means, put in a nutshell, damage worth a little less than two billion.

Frana Niscemi, Schlein: "I 100 mln stanziati dal Governo sono insufficienti, si usi 1 mdl del progetto del Ponte"

"A credible estimate that emphasises the urgency of taking action to prevent the consequences of the event from translating into substantial losses in growth and employment. Only a rapid reconstruction can prevent the decline of the strategic sectors of these territories, tourism and agribusiness, which have driven economic growth in recent years," says Luca Bianchi, director of Svimez. "From the management of the emergency, we need to move quickly to the definition of a programme of structural interventions, starting with the mobilisation of available resources, leveraging in particular the resources of the Sicilian Region's Development and Cohesion Fund, which allocates 1.2 billion to measures for 'climate risks and adaptation', to be committed by 2029.

In Sicilia. Tra gli effetti del maltempo anche i crolli nella città di Niscemi. (foto Alberto Lo Bianco/LaPresse)

The estimate on GDP matches the reasoning of the entrepreneurs: "The extreme weather events of these weeks," comments Sicindustria president Luigi Rizzolo, "are producing an economic impact that goes far beyond the areas directly affected. We have started a punctual monitoring of member companies, but it is already clear that the impact does not only affect the companies located in the most exposed territories. This is why we consider it essential that the perimeter of support interventions is not limited to narrow geographical criteria".

La frana di Niscemi vista dall'alto, il sopralluogo aereo dei vigili del fuoco

Of course, the hardest hit sector remains tourism. 'The entire coastline from Catania to beyond Taormina has been devastated. In some areas the sea took seven to eight metres of coastline, sweeping away everything in front of it. The most serious damage concerns the lidos, but Harry has also severely damaged the most exposed hotels: in the Catania part, many platforms insist on the rocks and have literally been swept away,' says Ornella Laneri, director of the company that owns the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Acicastello and president of the tourism section of Confindustria Catania. Now a second problem opens up, perhaps even more complex: that of reconstruction authorisations'. Even if we are talking about removable structures, we need design modifications, technical and safety checks that require time and human resources, and time, in view of the season, is not there. Added to this is a practical but decisive knot: the materials to rebuild, starting with the pipes needed for the platforms, are beginning to be unavailable.

Maltempo nel Catanese, i danni sul lungomare di Mascali

The open questions are many. The cyclone also highlighted in a plastic way the limitation of compulsory catastrophe policies: those companies that had fulfilled the insurance obligation required by law (not all of them had taken out the policy) discovered that they were in fact not protected because the coverage imposed only covered floods, landslides and earthquakes, while the most serious damage was caused by sea storms, an event excluded unless costly contract extensions were made; the result was that establishments, tourist facilities and production activities were left without compensation, with huge losses also due to business interruption, inevitably bringing back to the centre the recourse to public funds that the policy system should have reduced.

And then there is the application of the Bolkestein directive in the areas hit by Cyclone Harry, for example, which risks producing a short circuit: as the obligation to start tenders for beach concessions by 2027 approaches, the current operators - already hit by very serious damage and lacking in resources - have no incentive to invest in the reconstruction of establishments destined in any case to end up in tenders, with the result of blocking the recovery, desertifying the coasts and opening the way to litigation and compromised tourist seasons.