In December 2016, Cyclone Vardah made landfall near Chennai as a ‘severe cyclonic storm’, leaving two friends and me stuck in a house in the city for many days without power and water, as were most of the city’s residents. It was at least two weeks before life returned to some kind of normal.
Even when we don’t know whether global warming is responsible for intensifying a specific storm, we know its effects are allowing storms to intensify by and large including, like Vardah, those that form over the Bay of Bengal every winter. And once these storms make landfall, many things happen.
One is that in subsequent weeks, there is a surfeit of news reports, features, and commentary about the devastation these storms have wrought: fishers’ nets and boats damaged, fish and cattle killed, people’s homes and assets blown away, crops inundated, trees destroyed, infectious disease outbreaks, and deepening poverty. The state is accused of apathy, especially when institutional support is reported to be missing.
