March• 2019 | 123READER’S DIGEST
overnight. The cars in the parking lot
were invisible. The phone and power
lines were down. Mobile phone cov-
erage, always spotty on the moun-
tain, had gotten worse. The only form
of reliable communication was wi-fi
through a satellite antenna.
Faye Dame, a 42-year-old Sene-
galese immigrant who helped Del
Rosso with maintenance work, was
doingthebesthecouldtocleara
path in the driveway. Employees
in the kitchen were trying hard to
manage what was left of the dwin-
dlingprovisions.Forbreakfast,they
putoutafewmicrowavedcroissants,
some marmalade, and Nutella.
Afterbreakfast,Matroneand
Cicionireturnedtothespaand
climbedintotheJacuzzi.Matrone
sank beneath the surface. And
then: the hotel began to wobble. The
windowsrattledandthewaterinthe
tub sloshed over the edges.
The couple leaped out of the Jacuzzi.
They didn’t yet know exactly what had
happened – that a quake measuring
5.7 on the Richter scale had struck
the mountain – but Matrone had had
enough. “Let’s get the baggage and get
out of here,” he told his wife, dressing
quickly. Others followed him into the
car park, where they began excavating
their cars. Fifteen minutes after the
first earthquake, another tremor hit,
this one measuring 5.6.
With a dozen vehicles freed, guests
setoffdownthedriveway.Butwhen
they reached the main road, the path
wasblockedbyatwo-metre-high
wall of snow. Matrone climbed out of
his car and scaled the drift. There was
noroad,justaglisteningexpanseof
whitepowder.Heturnedandyelled
down to his wife: “We’re trapped!”ADesperatePlea
They backtracked to the hotel, where
Del Rosso assured his frustrated
guests that the road would soon be
ploughed. Around 1.30pm, as the
guests ate lunch, their plates began to
rattle with the dreadful shake of an-
other tremor. Two hours later came
a fourth quake. Del Rosso said there
was nothing to fear. Authorities were
working to help them all get off the
mountain, he said.
But in private, he was far less certain- and was sharing his alarm by text
message with a nephew in Pescara.
There, Del Rosso’s nephew, an em-
ployee of the hotel himself, emailed
the provincial chief in Pescara at
3.30pm, copying in the mayor’s of-
fice in Farindola, in a desperate plea
to get a snowplough sent up to the
hotel. “Customers are terrified of
earthquakes.”
Moments later, Del Rosso got a
reply from his nephew. Farindola’s
only snowplough powerful enough to
clear the road was out of commission,
he was told. A replacement could not
arrive until the evening.
As the light outside faded, guests
and workers alike searched for
distraction. Adriana Vranceanu and