Forewarn fishermen to forearm against storms

The rainy season is all but over. There may be forecasts of more rain to come, which may or not materialise because the chances of forecasting accuracy are bafflingly low as ever. But the Chennai and Tamil Nadu jinx of at least one extreme weather event per year stays. It was the turn of the cyclone named Ockhi to keep up the record after the floods of 2015 and Cyclone Vardah of 2016. Mercifully, Ockhi did not strike at the heart of the capital as the previous calamities but was nevertheless become a name to remember after Vardah and Thane (2011).

Truth to tell, we have learnt a bit from the successive calamities of 2015 and 2016. At the disaster management centre in Chennai, the response to Ockhi was far more focused. For the first time it appeared as if preparedness had paid although the weather watchers took their time to study the gathering of the storm before confirming it, by when it was probably too late for those who had set sail to the high seas. What the Met office could not predict was when Ockhi became a real storm and where would he / she go after gaining the danger status.

The operations in the air missions over the seas to rescue fishermen were spectacular. The story of divers dropping down into the water in order to assist fishermen who were too tired to even clip themselves to the harness was really touching. This called for bravery beyond the call of duty in seas that were rougher than what the best graphics of Hollywood can portray. The fishermen who came back safely said they had never seen anything like this. The seas seemed impossibly angry. The Navy, the Coast Guard and the Air Force did their best even though they were told to look for needles in a haystack.

Every life is precious, be it that of a Minister or the fisherman out on his hardly seaworthy boat. Unfortunately we don't see it that clearly. The fishermen are invariably left to fend for themselves although sometimes it does seem they prefer it that way. 

Try telling them to go by the best navigational and GPS gadgets of the day and they would probably say their instincts were better at predicting than the tech. It may take years for them to learn, which is frustrating for those trying to set up a system by which tracking of boats is possible since individual radars are not something our fishermen can afford on boats that are just about seaworthy. But those who go deep sea fishing in big trawlers must be encouraged tpo equip themselves with the best navigational aids.

The burden of enforcing safety is the burden of India, an eternal maelstrom with very few to lead and none to follow. The money invariably paid out after every calamity is no compensation for the lives lost. And Ockhi has been particularly severe as over 300 fishermen from Kerala (about 264) and Tamil Nadu are now missing and time is running out on daring sea rescues as it is more than 12 days since many of the fishermen left for deep sea fishing. Arguments raged over when the MET put out the cyclone warning and whether they were passed on in time to the seafarers. While there is no reason to doubt that MET put out the warning on the day before the storm hit, it is moot whether the message was passed on in real time.

It would appear a logical way would be to create a directory and WhatsApp groups of fishermen so that weather bulletins can be transmitted constantly even in days when the sun is invariably beating down in most parts of the year. 

The bulletins will be very important in the monsoon season as south India gets both the southwest and the northeast and tropical storms are not uncommon during the monsoons. 

The remarkable work being done by the amateur weather bloggers, including Keaweather, whose weather report and forecasts are featured in the Deccan Chronicle every day, can also be tied to the bulletins for local weather reports and storm warnings. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. The fishermen have to be sensitised to believe in the dictum rather than just swear by their instincts.