| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The monitoring of the evacuation was done on carefully chalked out methodologies with clearly laid down instructions. The following activities were among the priority areas in the monitoring process
• District and local administrative officers were categorically intimated to communicate Early Warning to the people over and above the electronic and print media. The early warning was carried by the Government officials to the communities in most of the areas to be evacuated. Queries of the people were answered and clarifications provided in the most understandable local dialect to convince the illiterate and semi-literate persons about the ferocity of the approaching cyclone.
• Collectors were advised to use community volunteers to disseminate Early Warning to the people and instructions were followed in letter and spirit.
• All the stakeholder line departments in the district were under instruction to provide assistance for making logistic arrangement at temporary and shelter places for the evacuated persons. Essential items like food, materials, fuel for the generators, fuel for cooking, drinking water and other arrangements were coordinated by the respective line department officers in the district.
• Collectors were specifically directed to ensure complete evacuation of people living in low lying areas and in kutcha houses to safer places by 11.10.2013 evening.
• People living adjacent to rivers and creeks up to 20 km upstream from the mouth were also evacuated to safer places.
• Free Kitchen centres were opened from the night of 11th October 2013 for the evacuated people.
• The cattle population was also shifted to safety and cattle feed/ fodder arrangements were made for them.
• Bitter lessons were learnt from super cyclone when people ignored the warning of the Authorities to evacuate. So the thrust was given to the process of evacuation. And the evacuation monitoring was taken by the officer-in-charge on a personal level thus bestowing a rare administrative importance to the process of evacuation. The monitoring was done on minute to minute basis with information received not only from the district but also directly from the Block and shelter level. Collectors were continuously on the loop to report the progress of evacuation. To avoid clogging of the cell phone network and keeping the personal cell phone of the ACS R&DM Department from being constantly engaged, the stakeholder field officers were directed by him to be in the loop through SMS. The otherwise casual and commercial SMS platform was used as a very serious job of monitoring evacuation of a million people to safer locations.
• The practicality of monitoring the evacuation developed distinct methodologies as: 1. Communication from Institution to Institution and 2. Communication from Man to Man. The District Emergency Operation Centres (EOC) communicated with the State EOC and the control room of the Revenue and Disaster Management Department and the Collectors / field level officers communicated with the ACS personally. Thus, a massive evacuation was conducted without any major bottleneck. The cell phone screen of the personal mobile phone of ACS was the information provider to him
• Time was short, area was too dispersed covering 14 districts and the task was herculean. A review by the Hon,ble Minister, R&DM on 12th October, 2013 at 11.30 AM revealed that around 3,61,000 persons from low lying areas and kachha houses, 1,20,000 people in Ganjam district; 80,000 in Puri district; 14,205 in Bhadrak district; 1950 in Balasore district; 46,409 in Cuttack district; 1,235 in Nayagarh district and 8,000 in Gajapati district. 9.84 lakh people were evacuated. Subsequently, 1, 71,083 persons were evacuated in 3 districts which were severely affected by flood following the cyclone.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The decision for evacuation to achieve zero casualty was implemented by a number of stakeholders who played their respective roles in achieving the target and thus saved lives.
At the State level along with the personnel monitoring of evacuation by Managing Director, OSDMA the monitoring was conducted by the Control Rooms set up in Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) and in Revenue & Disaster Management Department. The State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) also played its role in the process of evacuation.
In the district level, Collector Sri Krishan Kumar was one of the most important stakeholders in achieving the task. His colleagues and officers in the district office along with the officers of the line departments assisted him in doing the job. The Block Development Officers and the Tahasildars at Sub-district level along with their staff actually went from house to house in the vulnerable areas to convince people to evacuate. The Police Forces, Home Guards and other personnel helped in evacuation by applying force where required as per section-34 ( C ) of Disaster Management Act, 2005. The Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations also provided their assistance in evacuation of the people. The local media also played their role in disseminating the information to the people that Government is serious about evacuation.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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The massive evacuation operation was carried out within 72 hours prior to the landfall of cyclone to ensure that people living in vulnerable locations and houses are taken to temporary safe shelters or cyclone shelters. This was a decision of the Government with a view to achieving zero casualties in the cyclone. The process of evacuation included safety of the shelter building, provisioning of food, drinking water, toilet facilities and security for women. All measures relating to evacuation were thoroughly planned. District Collectors of coastal areas were asked to evacuate people living in low-lying areas to safer places like cyclone shelters and school and college buildings. Repeated announcements were made on radio and television about the cyclone and instructions, the people needed to follow for their own safety. The ODRAF was pressed into service in the districts and medical, civil supply and power personnel were put on alert. NGO coordination meeting was convened at the State level to impress upon them to extend their support to the District Administration for evacuation to safe shelters.
The Cyclone Shelter Management and Maintenance Committees (CSMMCs) were geared up to keep the Multipurpose Cyclone Shelters in readiness to accommodate people. Block Development Officers who are the Chairmen of the CSMMC were asked to take all required measures to keep the shelter buildings ready for evacuation. They were also instructed to keep adequate food materials for preparation of cooked food, drinking water and First Aid boxes ready in the shelters. Minor repair works were carried out immediately for up keeping of the buildings. Preparatory meetings were taken up at District and Block level. Emergency equipment available in the cyclone shelters were tested and readied for use by the members of the CSMMCs. The Task Force members trained in Search and Rescue and First Aid techniques were kept in standby to provide necessary assistance even during the evacuation operations.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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983642 people were evacuated in the districts likely to be affected by cyclone Phailin. The most successful output of the initiative was that nearly a million people were evacuated and thus their lives were saved. The details of the evacuated people are placed below: Balasore-4185, Bhadrak-48202, Cuttack-114306, Gajapati-36960, Ganjam-180000, Jagatsinghpur- 101457, Jajpur-91131, Kandhamal-13310, Kendrapada-59550, Keonjhar-11825, Khurdha- 185291, Koraput-3860, Nayagarh-31565, Puri-102000
The analysis indicates that about 430 pucca houses and 121246 kutcha houses have been fully damaged. On an average if four persons had remained in the houses, the causality could have reached to an enormous proportion. As the evacuation initiative shifted this people to safe shelters their lives were saved.
The other major output was that the community members accepted evacuation as an alternative to save lives. The third output from the initiative was that people accepted use of force under Section-34 (c) of Disaster Management Act, 2005 empowering the administration to use force for evacuation as a bright sight of Governance. It indicates that people appreciate the good work done by the Government even if it hurts them a bit. The community members felt the utility of the shelter buildings to save lives and thus developed a sense of pride and belongingness towards these public infrastructure. Overall the effort consolidated the community feeling among the people to fight the disaster unitedly.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The information on progress of evacuation was transmitted from the village and wards in the Urban Local Bodies to the Additional Chief Secretary, Revenue & DM Department and Managing Director, OSDMA. He was in personal contact with the Collectors of the districts on a minute to minute basis for evacuation details. Perhaps, this intense monitoring with the Collectors themselves drove the message to the district administration and all the functionaries working in the field to take evacuation in real seriousness. Even the Collectors along with their senior officers were present in the vulnerable villages in the dead of night on 11th October, 2013 either to persuade the people or to force them to evacuate to safe shelters. To accommodate maximum number of communications transmitted from the field to OSDMA, Collators were directed to send text messages instead of calling to the Managing Director personally. The simple platform of the SMS was transformed into an active tool to monitor the most demanding job of evacuating people from the vulnerable locations.
Officers manning the control rooms were on strict instruction to talk with the field functionaries at different levels to collect information and bring it to the immediate notice of the MD, OSDMA. State intervention was provided instantly to solve the problems faced by the field level functionaries. Decision making was virtually on a virtual mode instead of taking the normal routine path of Administration. The State Administration became one with the district and field level operatives to take decisions instead of giving instructions only. This system adapted by the MD, OSDMA worked seamlessly combining different levels of hierarchy of the Government to accomplish the task of the massive evacuation.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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The biggest problem that was encountered during the evacuation process was to convince the local people to leave their houses and go to safe shelters. The people are psychologically linked to their houses and consider it to protect them in the event of a disaster even though the house is not strong enough to do that. The next problem was to convince people to evacuate when the weather was clear and sun was shining bright. People in the areas without any prior experience of cyclone were the most difficult to be convinced as they were driven by their perception that cyclones are not so dangerous. The traditional faith of the people in Government and Government officials was used as a tool to convince people to evacuate. Senior officers of the district including Collector were directed to go to the villages and talk with the people, man to man, to convince them. The warning communication was continuously provided through media in vernacular Odia with the details of the wind speed to occur and what effects it could bring to different types of houses. The logistics arrangement in the shelters like cooked food, drinking water, sanitation, lighting and security were very difficult to handle at the critical juncture of evacuation. The district administration with the help of coordination efforts from the State level organised prepositioning of food materials, drinking water, fuel for generators and other essential items for cooking in the shelter places. People were apprehensive about the security of their houses and belongings during their evacuation to the shelters as a result of which they were reluctant to move to the shelters. Security arrangement by Police and community volunteers was done for facilitating evacuation of the people. Even physical force was used in accordance with the provisions of the law to evacuate people as a last resort.
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