BHUBANESWAR: Even water has flown down the bridge as 1999 after the Super Cyclone devastated the disaster-prone Odisha and subjected its own inept handling of natural calamities. Through time, the nation’s catastrophe management module is now come of age along with also the government has been gearing up to brace Cyclone Yaas that moment. Like the preceding decades, the government has obtained an assurance of ensuring anti casualty and will be relying heavily on both technical wings — that the Odisha Fire Service and the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) — to get the goal. The two wings have made accolades to their deft management of post-disaster evacuation, rescue and recovery surgeries before. NDRF teams also have been set up in Odisha to execute fires, rescue and recovery work. “The government was taking measures to update the infrastructure and skill of their ODRAF. Recently, we bought newest gadgets, such as tower lights, search lights, petrol generators, JCBs, hydra cranes, inflatable boats, luxury springs, gasoline grills, plasma cutters, satellite telephones and walkie talkie collections worth almost Rs 20 crore,” additional director general of police (law and order) Jeshwant Jethwa stated. Odisha Police also need to concentrate on the capacity building of its ODRAF employees and deliver it on a level with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). The police officer ran a research to discover about the NDRF’s present infrastructure and equipment. In the wake of the 1999 Super Cyclone, that had killed over 10,000 individuals, the state authorities had begun constructing its disaster management capability with the introduction of this ODRAF from Odisha Police in 2001. The ODRAF, whose members are drawn out of the Odisha Police, serves under the administrative control of this ADG (law and order). It’s 20 units, comprising almost 1,000 rescue employees and functions in conjunction with the division of the Specific Relief Commissioner (SRC), to react to emergency situations arising out of calamities. More than 800 of these were mobilised to undertake Cyclone Yaas. Even the Odisha Fire Services employees, whose primary job will be to douse fire, also, have excelled in the area of crisis management in the nation. Their installation from the rescue operation in Andhra Pradesh through Cyclone Hudhud at October 2014, the Kerala flash flooding at August 2018, both the research and rescue of trapped labourers at a coal mine at Meghalaya at December 2018 and also in West Bengal in the aftermath of Cyclone Amphan at 2020 made them the label of function model. Disaster management abilities became an essential part of the fire support training programme following the devastating 1999 Super Cyclone. “Altogether 190 unique teams are stationed at the districts that are vulnerable, such as Balasore and Bhadrak,” manager general (fire services) M Akhaya stated.