In the eye of the storm

In the eye of the storm

It was a pleasant day on the 26^th of April, 2019, the Meteorological Office officers had been having a pleasant conversation and enjoying their first cup of tea, when one of the officers saw something on his computer that had reeling with shock and disbelief. He double-checked the data; however, as everyone knows, data does not lie, and so he broke the news to his colleagues.

The news in question was the gradual genesis of an extremely severe super-cyclone, which, in its infancy, was christened ‘Phoni’ (which means ‘snake’).

The moment they had caught wind of the cyclone, they began to send out periodical warnings to the respective State Governments, and also the Central Government, while also simultaneously tracking and mapping the formation and possible/approximate trajectory of the cyclone.

They began by 6-hour warnings on the 27th, shortened it to 3-hour warnings by the 29^th of April, and then every 3 hours, from the 01^st of May onwards, as the cyclone came even closer to the country.

Initially, they had tracked it heading towards Tamil Nadu, then decided it would make landfall at Andhra Pradesh, but finally realized that it would make landfall at Orissa, specifically the holy tourist-pilgrim city of Puri, a task which can attributed to the calm guidance and experience of the Assistant Director-General of the Indian Meteorological Department, Mr Mohapatra, a veteran in tracking cyclones.

The cyclone reached a calamitous speed of 275kmph, when it made landfall at Puri at around 9 am, with winds gusting up to 300 kmph; speeds which left the Ganjam, Kendrapada, Jajpur, Cuttack, Bhubaneshwar, Jagatsinghpur, etc looking like war-zones, that is, broken, smashed windows everywhere, broken buildings, trees, disconnected and mangled power lines.

During the cyclone, the people of Odisha went through what can only be described as hell. They were cut off from the rest of the outside world due to the fallen power lines, they barely had anything other than their essentials, and they had to witness the destruction of some of their beloved properties, that is, homes etc.

Beyond that, almost 300 flights and close to as many flights had been cancelled, with the Bhubaneshwar airport resembling a suicide bombing site, save the blood and gore.

Their main relief, was, however, that, they had managed to escape what was potentially death or much worse.

However, despite the damage to property, there was almost a minimal loss to human life (so, far 46 people have declared dead) due to the brilliant foresight and planning of Odisha’s Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik.

Prior to the cyclone, he had evacuated over 1.2 million people, or 12 lakh people away from the coastal and other low-lying areas, and sent them packing to specially built evacuation shelters, which came in very handy as several families could be accommodated in the shelters.

Also, his government arranged for special trains to ferry the people away from Puri to their homes, or near their homes. Along with that, a total of over 3 million messages had been sent to people’s mobile numbers, which helped in the speedy measures.

The cyclone, after it had had its fill of Odisha, then made its way to Bengal, entering Bengal at 4 am midnight, severely affecting places like Digha, Mandarmani, etc.

In Bengal, too, notably, Didi (as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee) is lovingly known, deployed similar anti-cyclone measures, that is, evacuations, relief packages, telling people to not venture out into the streets unless absolutely necessary.

By the time the cyclone reached Kolkata, however, it had weakened considerably, and so did not cause any major damage, save transforming some lanes in North Kolkata into petal-ridden lanes, and the deaths of a few young boys who had been outside during the cyclone despite their family’s warnings, and thus, paid the price for their disobedience, something which left their families in shock.

The cyclone then sunk its fangs into Bangaldesh, having weakened into a depression, leaving over 34 people dead there, despite its weakned state.

However, despite that, it caused no more significant damage to Bangaldesh and thus, ended its 10-day journey from the Bay of Bengal.

As I am talking about this, all efforts are on to restore at least some semblance of normalancy in Odisha.

My prayers are with them. Amen.