Yanam is a small town, and that is precisely why it mattered so much to Cyclone Arnab’s forecast. The India Meteorological Department said the very severe cyclonic storm would cross the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam, close to the south of Yanam, and when it did so in the early hours of October 28, from 0200 IST to 0800 IST, the town found itself at the centre of a storm surge warning, a rainfall warning and an evacuation effort that stretched across two states. Small towns do not choose their place in a forecast track. They inherit it, and they live with its consequences.
Arnab crossed the coast with sustained winds of 125 to 135 kilometres per hour and gusts reaching 150 kilometres per hour, and the department warned that a surge of 1.5 to 2.5 metres above normal tide would likely inundate low lying areas over the six hours following landfall. For a coastal settlement near the landfall point, that surge is the most dangerous part of the storm, more so than the wind itself, because water arrives where people live, work and shelter, and it does not recede as quickly as the wind drops. Trees were uprooted across multiple districts and power was disrupted, according to Andhra Pradesh’s chief minister’s office, and outer rain bands lashed coastal Odisha districts before the eye crossed land.
Why the track mattered
The storm’s slow movement near the coastline prolonged the landfall process, exposing coastal areas to strong winds and heavy rainfall for several hours, and at one stage the storm was described as practically stationary, with its edge on the coast while its centre remained over the sea. That slow movement is why the forecast track, and Yanam’s position relative to it, received so much attention in the days before landfall. A storm that crosses quickly passes through. A storm that stalls punishes the same coastline repeatedly, and the difference between a track a few dozen kilometres north or south can be the difference between a town that floods and a town that does not.
By 1130 IST, Arnab had weakened to a severe cyclonic storm, moving with winds of 100 to 110 kilometres per hour and gusts to 120, and was expected to weaken further into a cyclonic storm within three hours and then into a deep depression in the following six hours. Heavy rain warnings extended inland to Telangana and Jharkhand, with red alerts for several Odisha districts. For Yanam and the surrounding coast, the immediate task after landfall was familiar: restore power, clear roads, check low lying areas after the surge, and account for everyone who had been moved to shelters.
The evacuation behind the landfall
Early reports said no deaths had been reported, and that outcome, if it holds, will owe much to evacuations that moved more than 100,000 people to safety across Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, with some counts higher. Reports of the landfall recorded the wind speeds and the surge warning, and Press Headliner’s account of readiness is a parallel lesson: preparation is only useful when it happens before the event, not during it. Yanam did not choose to be at the centre of Arnab’s track. It prepared as if it were, and that preparation is why its story, so far, is one of disruption rather than disaster.
