Settling in at the cyclone shelter at Chandinipal near Dhamra an hour after she reached there with her 74-year-old mother-in-law, Mamata Dalai seemed anxious as she watched TV news reports on the impending cyclone Dana. A native of Amarnagar, around one kilometre from the shelter in Odisha’s Bhadrak district, Mamata (44) said she has no recollection of experiencing the landfall of a cyclone. “The super cyclone of 1999 was terrible, but I hardly remember it as I was very young. Though there have been many cyclones that hit Odisha in the past 10 years, none of them made any severe impact in our locality,” she told The Indian Express. She had to evacuate as she lived in a kutcha house. “We had no choice but to come here. My family didn’t get a house under the government’s scheme as we don’t have land pattas in our name,” said Mamata, whose husband works as a labourer in the fishing harbour. Unlike Mamata, 60-year-old Annapurna Dalai remembers the 1999 super cyclone, and recalled that food packets and other essentials were airdropped from military helicopters at the time. “We earn our livelihood from the sea and consider it sacred. If we have to die because of the sea, we will have no regrets. We have lived our life,” said Annapurna. Generally deserted throughout the year, Odisha’s multipurpose cyclone shelters were packed on Thursday with people, including several children, who were evacuated from various low-lying and vulnerable areas of the state. The shelters bustled with activity with officers making rounds to oversee the arrangements while volunteers were taking care of the elderly and the vulnerable. Among the high-profile visitors at the Chandinipal shelter was state minister Suryavanshi Suraj, who represents the nearby Dhamnagar Assembly constituency. When he arrived, a group of people at the shelter started airing their grievances, mainly about not getting a pucca house. The minister promised them that the issue would be resolved. Just a few kilometres away, at a crowded cyclone shelter at Dosingha village, Khokan Maity of Sonpatia village was looking for a place to settle down. “What choice do I have? We know it is a low intensity cyclone, but we can’t take the risk as we live in a kutcha house. Also, there are reports of storm surges. So, I had to come here,” said 50-year-old Maity. However, boys like class 8 student Raj Mahalik from Rabindranagar village were having fun staying together with their friends at the shelter. “We have never experienced cyclones. So far, I am happy because I got a chance to live with my friends under one roof, which is not usually possible,” said Raj. As many as 11 districts are expected to be affected by the cyclone, and the state government has prepared over 7,000 cyclone shelters with basic facilities, including the 840 multipurpose shelters.
