Odisha’s response to Cyclone Arnab is built around a single goal, stated plainly by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi: zero casualties. The state is not the expected landfall state, yet it is preparing as if it were, because the storm’s rain, wind and surge do not stop at a state border. Odisha has deployed around 60 state disaster response teams and 17 national teams, placed 225 fire service teams on high alert, prepared more than 1,700 cyclone shelters, and sent eight ministers to vulnerable districts to oversee preparations. Leave has been cancelled for district collectors and other key officials. Schools, colleges and childcare centres in Ganjam, Gajapati, Rayagada, Koraput and Malkangiri will close on October 28 and 29, a red alert covers those districts on October 28, and isolated rainfall of more than 20 centimetres is possible. Fishing at sea is banned, and tourists have been barred from hills, waterfalls and dams in six southern districts.
How a zero casualty plan works
A zero casualty plan is not a slogan. It is a sequence of decisions made before the storm arrives: identifying vulnerable people, moving them to shelters, staffing those shelters with food, water and medical support, and keeping communications open when power lines fall. Odisha’s plan pays particular attention to the elderly, patients and pregnant women, groups for whom evacuation is hardest and most urgent. In Ganjam district, 100 cyclone shelters are ready and 1,000 temporary sites have been identified, giving officials options if the storm shifts or if shelters fill. The state’s experience with cyclones, built over decades of storms on the Bay of Bengal coast, has taught it that the most dangerous moment is not the landfall itself. It is the hours before, when people decide whether to leave, and the hours after, when they decide whether to return too soon.
The test on Wednesday
The test of the plan comes on Wednesday morning, when Arnab is forecast to cross the coast near Yanam, between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam, with winds of 115 to 125 kilometres per hour and gusts up to 140. Odisha’s southern districts will face heavy rain and gusts of 70 to 90 kilometres per hour, according to the state’s preparedness update, along with the risk of localised flooding, waterlogging and transport disruption. The Odisha cyclone preparedness report notes that Majhi said the state would take no chances despite the storm being forecast to make landfall in Andhra Pradesh. That sentence captures the logic of the plan: prepare for the worst in your own districts, even when the forecast points elsewhere, because forecasts shift and storms do not respect administrative boundaries. If Odisha records no deaths from Arnab, it will not be luck. It will be the result of shelters staffed, teams deployed, schools closed and ministers on the ground before the storm arrived.
