I was marooned by Cyclone Vardah. My ten hours of helplessness
It was a damp Monday morning. The city of Chennai was given a warning of a harsh intruder about to strike the peaceful coastal city and the first round of alert was already out on December 11. Schools and colleges were to be closed and private companies were asked to provide holiday or work from home provisions for their employees.
While the life of a journalist begins where it usually ends for the general public, all holidays turn into compulsory working days. No venturing out warnings become "to be out there" moments and Cyclone Vardah was no different. My crew and I reached our designated location at the East Coast Road (ECR) in Chennai at 8am and started off our day's work. From a normal drizzle, the pace of the rain gradually increased, a lot. Till 1pm things seemed normal with just the intensity of the rain really high. Needless to say that each droplet felt like a stone being pelted on our faces.
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| Streetlights, traffic signals, trees all fallen: Cyclone Vardah was a nightmare for Chennai. [Photo: Agencies] |
Avantika, my anchor was slowly telling her viewers, "Cyclone Vardah is expected to make landfall at 1:30pm towards the north of Tamil Nadu", and moments later my earpiece went dead. My watch clocked 1:15pm and my camera person and I tried taking shelter in front of the lone wall in the vicinity, waiting for the earpiece to start the flow of information again (a cue for me to get back on the live telecast.) Five minutes on and my outdoor broadcaster's (OB) engineer, Surender, called out, "Ji! Antennas are shaking. Live nahi ho payega (Live won't be possible)". A little annoyed, and rolling my eyes, cameraperson Daniel and I ran back to the OB trying to figure out a way. Just as we reached the OB, we heard a loud thud and then a second thud.
Frantically, as we turned we realised that two huge mahogany trees had fallen blocking our only exit. We were now blocked, with the sea in front and falling trees behind (well, more like between the devil and the deep sea). Minutes later, the three of us were cramped inside the OB dripping wet, satellite down and waiting for our phones to come back online. No signal. No signal. And then it began.
We felt the harsh shaking of our OB. It was shaking, no, almost swaying...10...15...20...25 seconds and it felt like eternity. This was the third round in the last 15 minutes that the 3.5 ton outdoor broadcaster was shaken so hard.
#cyclonevardah : View from the shaking OB. pic.twitter.com/vrziLbdznF
— Akshaya Nath (@Akshayanath) December 12, 2016
Minutes passed into hours and there was no sign of any relief. We had been inside the OB for more than three and half hours before the phone started to buzz.
"Where are you guys? What is happening? Send us some inputs," called out the voice from the other side of the phone. "Our signals are out. My OB van's antennas are shaking and we aren't getting any signal. Also, we are stuck! There is no exit," I said with the first sound of panic evident.
"Shoot on your phone and send us the input. We have to see what is happening there," the person in IT assignment said. "There is no network. I have been trying to send our videos. We can't get out of the vehicle. It is dangerous," I said. The worried look was evident on both Surender's and Daniel's faces and oh, we were hungry! It had been more than ten hours since we had had our breakfast. For a few seconds we could hear our stomachs growling louder than the winds outside. A small peak outside seemed very difficult.
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| Cyclone Vardah had resulted in trees blocking many an arterial road in Chennai. [Photo: Agencies] |
Surender "had" to get out; he couldn't control his nature's call. Well, the man decided to come running back faster than he did going out when he saw four trees at a distance of 20 metres from our OB falling back to back in a matter of just one second! "Ji... pehli bar aese toofan dekh raha hoon!" (I am seeing a cyclone like this for the first time!), he said. 5pm, and for the first time in the last four and half hours, the wind speed decreased and we mustered courage to step out and head to our Innova that was on the other side of the fallen trees. Well, though we had attempted to step out and move towards the vehicle, each attempt was witnessed by a tree falling down right on our path.
View from a window. The path that was taken. #cyclonvardah pic.twitter.com/VmDsBSXkl3
— Akshaya Nath (@Akshayanath) December 12, 2016
Our Innova driver - Bala - was stuck alone at the other end, not able to reach us and worried as hell over what was happening, and the relief on seeing us again was evident on his face.
The first thought on reaching the car was "food". Silently but quickly we finished our packed lunch. Now, it was time to find an escape route. Locking the OB, Surender, Daniel, Bala, Jamal (OB driver) and I started our car and reversed it to move through the road that did not have a fallen tree.
The outdoor broadcaster was our safe zone during the cyclone. It was scary, but that was the only option. #cyclonevardah pic.twitter.com/fZaO4HHLYE
— Akshaya Nath (@Akshayanath) December 13, 2016
At just 400metres from our starting point, the road was under water and further ahead was another huge tree, fallen and blocking the way.
We were locked out. There was no escape. It was 6:15pm and pitch dark. "Call assignment and inform," said Daniel, the most experienced of us all.
"We are stuck. It is dark. There are snakes, lizards, and many other insects all over the place. One road is completely waterlogged and the other road has some ten trees fallen. We will need help," I informed those sitting in Delhi.
Girish Nair, senior editor and the south in-charge in the assignment, called back, "Listen, tell me what is your exact location?"
"East coast road, ahead of VGP," I replied.
"I am tweeting it out to NDRF," he said. 6:40pm and the wait was scarier than the locality itself.
#Vardah #Treefall Colleague @Akshayanath stuck after VGP at East Coast Road since morning. #Treefall has trapped the team at ECR. Pls help
— Girish Nair (@nairkgirish) December 12, 2016
"Why don't we walk it out? NDRF will have worse situation to handle. We will walk to the main road. What say?" I asked.
No one seemed to disagree; not even the ones monitoring us at the Delhi office. With the camera's handlight converted into our torch, the five of us started walking.
Howling wind, broken trees resembling scary images, entangled cable wires, loud cricket noise, and with raindrops hitting hard on our faces, we walked, walked and walked. Half an hour later, by 7:20pm, we reached the main road where we immediately got hold of a taxi. The five of us cramped into an Indica and ventured into the city, and we were given a glimpse of the intensity with which the 120-odd-kilometre speed cyclone had created havoc in Chennai.
We aren't in any forest, but in our very own #ECR. #Chennai #cyclonevardah effect pic.twitter.com/exU4S8ZPRx
— Akshaya Nath (@Akshayanath) December 13, 2016
Streetlights, traffic signals, trees all fallen. Water flowing through many roads, buildings and scaffoldings fallen, billboards ripped apart and the city ushered in darkness. Covering Vardah has been the experience of a lifetime. We witnessed the calm before the storm, the panic during the storm and the relief after the storm.