Comprehensive Cyclone restoration Strategy (Hudhud Cyclone) - Part 7 1. The effect of cycle during its occurrence is enormous interns of both mental and physical stress. The fear of unknown and helplessness experienced during the peak period can emotionally subdue any individual for a reasonable period of time. The scenes of widespread devastation,leaf less tree trunks, bird less sky, bend electricity poles, entangled electrical wires, broken tree branches, broken lifeless glass buildings,disoriented large chunks of land, distressed people, struggling animals, fast moving ambulances, uprooted trees, crushed motor vehicles, overturned boats and ships, eroded land near the sea and water bodies, broken boundary walls, worried mothers wondering for baby foods, lifeless face of people recuperating from the worry of losing every things that they have, unimaginable bending positions of few electricity poles, crawling telecom , radio and aviation towers, scene of broken overhead water tanks along side the roads and few such other occurrences will not only have an impact in the life of people in the effected and near by areas , but will definitely create long term mental impressions which can have both positive and negative effects. However, when these impressions combine with our experiences, everything converts to positive emotions making us better human beings encouraging to contribute towards comforting life of people who are effected by such situations at other places at different points of time. 2. The systemic movement of the State and Central Disaster recovery teams marching forward with their machinery will definitely make peoples life more easier as the tree carpeted blocked roads start appearing allowing slow movement of intermittent traffic facilitating the passage of ambulances, fire and rescue services , Police and Administrative vehicles. This is an indication that the worst is over and life will crawl back to normalcy, initially little slower but a lot faster after the first week is over. Its only a matter of time before every destroyed facility is restored. This duration can be minimized with the presence of an effective government and presence of right kind of crisis managers at the right place. It is a fact that, an average person will get disturbed seeing the cyclone leftovers and this will result in extreme lower efficiency in everything that they do. However a crisis manager will see this as an opportunity to help others and will start planning during the initial inspection period itself , much before the actual restoration work starts, making the restoration work a cake walk. 3. Cyclone restoration work needs definite Govt. push in all spheres of the restoration activity. 4. Restoration work can be broadly classified into Communication network restoration, Power Supply restoration, Water Supply restoration, Transport Sector restoration,hospital sector restoration,essential item stock replenishment and smooth distribution in the entire disaster zone, management of people holed up in the cyclone shelters, clearing of derbies, cleaning of water bodies, theft prevention in respect of public property including tree trunks and electricity network items, activation of all available means (FM and AM) for radio broadcast, maintenance of law and order and intelligence gathering to prevent mass psyche, reopening of banks, educational institutions etc. 5. Restoration of telecommunication link is the foremost requirement. It is possible to restore the mobile networks by erecting temporary towers which can be completed in 48 hours. Most telecom operators either have standby generators on site or have solar systems with 24hour battery backup. Hence power supply wont be a problem for telecom towers. Even there exists portable ground based easy deployable solutions for restoring or augmenting the mobile networks is specific geographic areas particularly where the district administration is concentrated and restoration Command Center is located. Generally the telecom companies take a back step due to higher cost involvement in respect of erecting temporary towers. However considering the revenue loss with no network service, this additional expenditure is always practicable and justified. Mostly, the work is delayed due to inefficiencies in the decision making process than the cost factor. The Government must send a stern warning to the telecom operators to restore the network under the command of a technically competent leader. Generally, as part of the cyclone preparation portable mobile towers must be loaded in trucks for immediate transportation to the effected areas. Both man and machinery must standby few hundred kilometers away from the predicted cyclone path and make a move once the cyclone is over and reach to the disaster zone outer bound entry points and wait for the roads to be cleared. Once roads are clear, materials should be delivered at site of erection. Mobile services must be restored with more than 50% efficiency within 96 hours of the cyclone. 6. Mobile network restoration work must be supervised by hardcore engineers having enough field experiences and it should not be left to mobile company managerial staff as the restoration work needs network reconfiguration and dynamic adjustments to the network based on on field conditions. Govt. must force the operators to deploy the best available technical manpower who can order network reconfigurations as per requirements projected by State Disaster Command Center. Network operators must coordinate among each other and start restoring towers in such a fashion that service is available in the entire disaster zone combining the services of all the operators. Then they should allow inter cell roaming within the same city so that all the subscribers of all the operators will able to use services till normalcy is restored. Most telecom towers bend from top section of the towers. Considering the crisis period the remaining half still can be used to install the antennas so that some short of service can be provided. 7. Being having underground cable for the main section of the wire line telephone service(fixed phones) and broadband, manual intervention is required for correcting the last mile problems to fully restore the fixed line network. BSNL and other operators must immediately deploy their manpower to correct the last mile problems and should proactively do this. Every restoration team must carry over head wires with them and do not delay restoration due want of single pair wires. Every person must have at least one fixed phone(not cordless) so that it can work even when power supply is not available. In case people need cordless they must have one cord less phone with base dialing facility i.e a combination of fixed phone and cord less, so that the same will work even when power supply is not available. The pressure for BSNL line restoration will increase after power supply is restored and people try to switch on their computers for communication purposes. So BSNL must start restoration immediately after the cyclone is over and the State Govt. must ensure that the essential service act is equally applied to BSNL as is done for other private operators. 8. The telecom companies must ensure that all the basic needs of restoration team are taken care by their best available managers with an aim to keep them in the field maximum time and rotate them to ensure H-24 restoration schedules. Sufficient quantities of dry fruits, high energy drinks,drinking water must be available in and around the restoration teams. 9. Govt. must procure and distribute small radio sets directly or through NGOs supported by industry donations and start broadcasting all its instructions and precautionary measures through all available FM stations, two times an hour for 5 minutes each. This will help in passing information to the general public, administrators of the restoration teams with minimum consumption of battery. Further every big achievement in the restoration process must be broadcasted to boast the morale of the people working day and night in the field. 10. During crisis period restoration should not be complaint based. A holistic approach must be adopted in restoration to ensure service reaches to everybody irrespective of their status. In case some areas or houses need extra time, additional teams must be sent there and the main teams must move forward to restore other localities where time value is more i.e maximum customer restoration with minimum time. The assessment teams must comprehend this situation in advance and do basic restoration planning before sending the restoration teams to the field. 11. State Govt. must send an SOS to adjacent states to send bottled drinking water in 20Lt/50 Lt containers and transport to the effected areas under the command of a dedicated team so as to prevent black marketing. Even if transport cost is added the cost of water at the disaster area should not be more than 50% of the normal rates. After some normalcy is restored effort must be made to source bottled drinking water from within the State with buffers from adjoining States. 12. Arrangements for portable water purifier plants must be made and installed at different places scattered in the entire disaster zone. This responsibility should always be commanded by officers who report for work from outside disaster zone for maximum efficiency. 13. State must ensure availability of sufficient battery, low cost vehicle based mobile chargers, solar mobile charger stations, dry food, energy drinks, milk, baby food, medicines etc which form a charter of cyclone management, must be transported to the effected area as soon as possible and Supply Department must keep an open eye to manage the situation with great care and avoid confrontation at every stage. Rational distribution of essential items must be ensured considering the need of both urban and rural areas. 14. Request must be sent to other States and Pharmaceutical companies to dispatch loads of essential medicines, baby foods, and energy drinks and store them at distributed locations under direct command from their top management reporting to State Govt. Crisis Management Command Center. 15. Use service of officers from outside the cyclone hit area or from near by states to maximize result. People in the cyclone hit areas will be in subdued state due to the negative impact on them and on their family chain. Like other people, the District Administrative staffs families also might be struggling for basic amenities in the cyclone hit areas which in turn will bother them from inside. However volunteering officers must be given highest priority as the need of the hour is the desire to serve for the betterment, than just doing our duty. This action is crucial in the initial seven days of the cyclone. As a new week begins life leaps back to some degree of normalcy increasing efficiency of people. 16. Repeated broadcast over AM/FM stations not to indulge in black marketing and distribution schedules of items through public distribution network must be regularly broadcasted. This should be done in all available FM channels twice a hour for less than 5 minutes in each broadcast. 17. Use the best available Crisis Managers linking them to Central Command Center for effective management. Crisis managers must be given contingency and widespread powers for execution of work with minimum loss of time. However everybody must be told to make themselves accountable for their decisions and expenditure after normalcy is restored. The Command Center must comprehend working schedules of all sections and try to reallocate resources so as to provide service to maximum area without any weak link in the affected area. Once a week link is identified dedicated team must be deployed to reinforce and strengthen the area. 18. Announce sufficient monetary and non monetary benefits for the restoration workers working in the fields and provide them right kind of tools, safety equipments etc. and motivate them using standard managerial practices. The basic needs of restoration workers such as food and water and other energy recouping items must be fulfilled by a good managers with the help of mobile teams and supply vehicles. Sufficient night gear must be provided with gen sets and emergency lightning systems for H-24 restoration work. Reinforcement of skilled workers from outside must be done on large scale after 96 hours of the cyclone and this practice must be followed for at least 2 more weeks. In case working conditions are very tough with heavy rain and chance of epidemic breakout is higher, worker replacement must be done every fourth day and the people should be sent out of the disaster zone and preliminary health check up must be done before relieving them from job. 19. The disaster area derbies clearing for vehicle movement will be over within 24 hours of the cyclone. This work is aimed at clearing the roads and not to remove the derbies. Derbies cleaning must be done by a dedicated outside team requisitioned form within the state or from adjacent states. they need to have their own equipment, vehicles, manpower and management team. They must create temporary convenient dumping place identified by the Command Center. Dumping should be in convenient places with an intention to clear later with heavy machinery so that all areas can be cleared with minimum time. This activity generally must start after 72 hours of the cyclone and must continue for another 72 hours. After 3 days of of arrival, the workers must be sent back and only a minor portion of the team must be retained for another week. In case cyclone is preceded by heavy rain and all the areas are flooded even after 3 days, this work must be carefully handled under the guidance of a crisis manager having sufficient exposure to water borne diseases and its prevention. When animal casualty count is very less, the chance of water contamination will be very less. 20. The ripped apart leafs and storm grinded leafs of trees are vital sources of drain blockages in individual houses and public sewage networks. This position must be ascertained immediately after the cyclone and such type of main sewage cleaning must be undertaken to clear flooding water in the main city area. During cyclone, most people might have observed water pouring into the house making their lives even worst in the peak of the cyclone mainly when the south wind is in its peak. Most people in the first floor or above think that water wont enter the house due to their height advantage. However the balcony drain holes are bound to be choked by the leaf powder generated by the cyclone and water will start entering into the houses. Further water will enter when there is scope for air to enter into the house. During last phase of the cyclone people always get air accompanied by water destroying most of the household electronic and cotton items. 21. All cyclone shelters must be keep preparing and supplying food at least for 15 days so as to relive people from the worry off food and this will reduce the demand for water supply. During cyclone portable water availability will be a possibility but drinking grade water may not be available. Hence central food supply will reduce peoples worry and also will help the administration to contain water borne diseases. Food should be delivered at door step with disposable packings. NGOs and local administration must work in coordination to maintain order and hygiene. Administration must encourage all hotels to start preparing simple nutritious food at reasonable cost and make parcels ready for the initial 10 days of the cyclone or till the time power supply is restored to most areas. Central food distribution will save tons of water resources. 22. Relief work by religion and caste based groups and political parties should be avoided in the initial 10 days and all the relief material must be routed through the State Govt representatives and uniform distribution should be ensured. People should be advised to concentrate on actual distribution of material rather making propaganda. Most of the time law and order problems begins with non uniform biased way of distribution of relief material by such groups. 23. Police administration should be given strict instructions to maintain law and order and ensure essential commodity distribution by using carrot and stick policy. Intelligence officers must be deployed at mass gatherings for effective management and mass psyche prevention. Use of force should be bare minimum, and if any, should be reported to Command Center immediately for decisions making at the highest level. Local goons must be strictly warned of severe consequence in case any rowdiness is reported and such activity should be contained through intelligence gathering than complaint based action. Police force must be strictly advised not to wait till public reporting of irregularities but must start action based on intelligence inputs and general public must be advised to report irregularities to a central command help line and every information received should be tagged as intelligence input and actioned accordingly. Generally a supportive administration working in cyclone hit areas will rarely face law and order problems as people will always perceive the sincere efforts of the aid workers and will maintain order on their own. A simple carrot and stick policy with mobile paroling touching all areas and presence of police persons in uniform will liquidate sporadic nuisance/resistance. Do remember that the police personnel families are also battling the cyclone and the administration must be considerate in this regard by deploying paramilitary forces without arms and relieving them for reasonable period a day for catering their family needs. Further a separate team must be created to take care of their family needs of essential items to centralize relief work for the police force which will in turn bring efficiency in maintenance of law and order. 24. Dedicated teams must be employed after 72 hours of the cyclone to access damage to the educational infrastructure. The restoration of educational institutions must start just after power supply is restored. Generally educational institutes are big structures with more number of inner core rooms. Mostly the cyclone effect the outer rooms exposed to outside. However the common damage to the inner core could be bent fans and broken lighting systems and window panes and destroyed water supply tanks and water filters. A burst of cleaning with an aim to clear glass pieces and replacement of damaged ceiling fans and drinking water filter should be sufficient to start classes from 7th grade onwards. Due care must be given before starting classes up to 7th grade specially in the elementary schools. All elementary schools where tin roofs are damaged must be replaced through central contractors on rate contracts finalized with in the first 7 days of the cyclone. Further industrial houses also must be requested to chip in with support. However all support should be provided through the district Command Center to maintain uniformity in restoration. Most technical institutes construct their workshops with tin shed structure and mostly they might have damaged partially. Immediate restoration work must be ordered bypassing all official procedures and the job should be done through central rate contracts based on damaged area measurements. Restoration of these areas should not be undertaken till power supply, water supply and hospital infrastructure is back in line and working with more than 75% efficiency to keep sufficient manpower available for essential network restoration. Once essential network restoration is over, all workers must be diverted to restore educational infrastructure. However material transportation to the sites can be undertaken during the first 7 days of the cyclone. All the primary and secondary school infrastructure must be sanitized and cleared of all sorts of snakes,lizards and other such small creatures of poisonous nature by high quality supervisors having accountability. Once sanitized clearance is given by restoration workers, School Administration must cross check and if satisfied plan to restart classes phase wise starting from the top grade. In very rural areas, parents must be allowed to sanitize the areas after school administration does its job. The initial requirement is note books and study books, if severe rain is witnessed in the initial 5 days of the cyclone. In case rain is not witnessed , then every chance is that the study books might have been recovered by then necessitating only note books. Govt must send a clear cut request to industry houses located outside the disaster zone to provide assistance in this regard. Open of educational institutes must be a state subjects as mostly educational institutes are used as cyclone shelters and generally cyclone shelters are kept in contingency mode for 2 weeks after the cyclone is over. The opening of schools must be commanded by the dedicated team of the Central Command. A hard break should be put on over enthusiastic private schools those who do not understand the gravity of situations and behave irresponsibly. All private school infrastructure for suitability of children gathering must be inspected by the parents without fail. Only if parents are satisfied, the schools should be opened within two days of the agreement. If schools are opened very early with due inspections with parents consent, then group of parents must be allowed inside school premises one hour in advance till one hour after the school timings are over to monitor suitability of school administration claims for at least one week. Attendance till 21 days of the cyclone should be made null and void for any sort of considerations. 25. Immediate restoration of all boundary walls collapsed must be started 2 weeks of the cyclone or 3 days after the entire essential network is back in place and is working with full efficiency. Most boundaries might have fallen either due to low quality work(brick binding material is non existent or is done with sand only) or due to tree battering during the cyclone. All such surviving trees, but in dangerous condition must be neutralized before children are allowed into such campuses. 26. Dedicated professional teams must be deployed for revival of hospital sector infrastructure. Most of the hospitals have structure where they have inner core rooms not exposed to outside. Damage to such structure will be bare minimum and can be activated immediately. Basic needs such as X ray, Ultrasound, ECG, Pathlab tests etc must be made available on H-24 basis at all available stations, till the entire hospital sector is revived. Power supply must be made available to them through standby generators. 27. Standby generators must be provided at water treatment and pumping facilities. Even if water treatment is partial or non existent, pumping must start with basic mixing of chlorine related cleaning items to make portable water available to the masses. If there is no rain after the cyclone this activity must be speeded up. Generally people those who maintain the facilities tend to think that destroyed infrastructure will take time to recover and act accordingly and send their assessments accordingly. Crisis managers must take over restoration activities of water supply networks immediately after cyclone is over, generally within 24 hours of the cyclone. A subject matter expert must assist the crisis manager as and when required. High capacity pumps are the main component of the pumping stations, hence electrical engineers must inspect the pumps before starting. In case slit is found in the reservoir inline channel, first the same should be cleared. Generally a cyclone generates sticky leaf pastes and they must be cleared before entering the pump inlet. This has to cleared manually through suitable means before the pumps are started. Pump base mounting must be inspected for any damage beforehand. The water supply restoration work must start in war footing under the command of a crisis manager having sufficient contingency powers. Big generators placed at pump sites must be shared and transported back and forth in a wide geographic area to give relief to large section of the effected people. Hardcore and skilled manpower should be deployed for connecting generators temporarily to motors. Radio broadcast must be done regarding water supply position and alternate line of communication can be established through mass SMS. 28. Naval and Army power gears can be utilized to meet with resource crunch. The film industry must be requested for mobile gen sets as entertainment industry is the largest consumer of high capacity vehicle mounted generator sets. 29. Human factor management of the Skilled and the Semi Skilled workers is vital in speedy and quality restoration of essential services. Due to the extra attention they will be getting from people during this crisis period, will sometimes make a section of the workers complacent and opportunism will slowly builds up. They will tend to command rather than working. Crisis mangers must review performance of restoration teams regularly to achieve efficiency and either rejig or dismantle old teams and create new teams on regular basis to give clear signals to the restoration teams. Stress should be given regarding higher level monitory and non monetary benefits announcement reaching to on site workers. Command center must give clear cut targets and monitor efficiency for speedy work. 30. Petroleum fuel supply to the disaster area must be rationed at retail level at the beginning and sufficient stock must be made available after 4th day onwards without any rationing. As part of cyclone management loads of petroleum products must be stationed at least 500 km away from the predicted path and should be positioned on the edge of the disturbed area after the cyclone is over. Once road is cleared, three fourth of the stock must start rolling into the area and additional stock must flow since after. Cyclone mostly damage loosely built petrol pumps as they are high roof structures. After cyclone is over the Oil company managers must ensure that the petrol pumps are cleared from hanging roofs endangering public life. If required, tents can be erected over the pumps to restore normalcy. If required, petroleum product distribution can be done directly from portable pumps installed on the tankers itself under the guidance of safety officials of the oil companies. This is a requirement in the initial few days of the cyclone. The need is to make the service available at designated points so as to reduce peoples sufferings. In coastal cyclone prone areas the petrol pump structures must be made cyclone friendly. 31. Generally the banks maintain their ATM network through both terrestrial link and satellite links. In case satellite link is damaged the same can be fixed in a day or two. Strict instructions should be given to restore entire ATM network in all areas with in three days of the cyclone. Bank counters must operate round the clock in the initial period with staff deputed form outside the disaster zone. 32. Postal network also will be affected due cyclone and lack of power supply and thin attendance will pile up unsorted letters. A national broadcast must be made to all for resending all important documents again into the disaster area after normalcy is restored so an to cater to non distributed or missing letters. After cyclone, the administration must maintain a close watch on postal staff to prevent mischievous large scale letter dumping into rivers to reduce work load on the pretext of destroyed letters during cyclone. Postal authorities must be advised not to delay repayment of any rightful due to any individual on the pretext of cyclone. All anticipated payments must be released after 3rd day of the cyclone with the help of dedicated teams. 33. The large scale destruction will suddenly increase the demand for skilled and semi skilled construction workers. The sudden demand surge will make them complacent and this situation needs to be handled carefully else it will have long standing consequences affecting both the general public and the workers themselves. Administration must immediately announce through radio broadcast to people to undertake repair work at reasonable cost. If this does not yield result, them Govt must make conscious effort to bring in external workforce into the disaster area as a shock treatment. Once the local workforce start understanding the consequences, then they will report for work and the external workforce must be withdrawn in phased manner. Without this measure labor rates are bound to sky rocket after a disaster and may become a permanent feature. 34. Nuisance elements will involve themselves in black marketing and start exploiting the local people. Repeated radio broadcast with stern warnings must be aired to warn black-marketers. Intelligence based search operation should be under taken on regular basis to contain black marketing. The primary areas are essential items, drinking water, medicines, gen sets hiring rates, water tanker rates, kerosine, petrol, diesel etc. Mostly telemarketing is controlled by the distributors themselves hiding behind some frontal agents. Govt must fix rates for gen set hiring for water supply pump running. In case of any deviations, generators must be seized . Govt. must ensure that after road network is opened for traffic, the market should be flooded with essential items in the entire disaster zone. Dedicated raid teams must be charted out to create fear psychosis among mischief mongers. Selective intelligence must be leaked to prevent and contain pretty black marketers, than punishing them in large scale. 35. Rate of food items will be higher after the cyclone. If this continues for a long time the average price point in the disaster area will be much more than the earlier price due no apparent reasons. Generally vendors try to justify high rates and work in tendom to keep the prices higher. In that case large section of people must form pressure groups and start boycotting food vendors in area wise to force them to come to terms and bring price to reasonable levels. Money rotates very fast after the cyclone as people are distressed and are interested in getting services even if there is a premium involved and most people try to maintain that tempo even after 3 weeks of the cyclone. This results in profiteering and needs full containment by the district administration. 36. Govt. must give strict instructions to the insurance companies to complete all surveys in a time bound manner and release all payments in time. Due care must be taken for insurance payment of live stock such as to poultry industry so as to help them restart their business again with minimum loss of time so that animal protein related items will be available for general public. 37. The vital part of power Supply restoration is described in the earlier part .i.e part 6 and hence the same is not appended here. The above strategy is based on the assumption that both human and domestic animal casualty is bare minimum resulting in very less emotional stress among the masses. The steps to recover may look gigantic when discussed ,but while employing them in the time of crisis will not be tough, as it will have a spontaneous flow resulting in easy implementation. In a cyclone hit area, after initial two days there should not be any shortage of manpower at any level and jobs should be undertaken based on the job requirements, rather than based on available manpower. Dedicated and sincerer people must be brought in right into the disaster area for freeing local staff and increasing efficiency through import of expertise. Regards Bighnaraj Panigrahi
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 04:15:05 +0000
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