The Warning That Arrived at 6:55 p.m.
Dhemaji district, 12 July. At 6:40 p.m. an embankment 6 km upstream breaches. At 6:55 p.m. a block official's SMS reaches the headmaster of No. 2 Gerukamukh Lower Primary School: water is expected in the village within about 90 minutes and may rise 15 cm an hour through the night. Mobile signal is failing.
The village has about 900 residents, including 40 elderly or disabled people and 6 pregnant women, and roughly 300 cattle. The school is a single-storey Assam-type building whose concrete roof is reached only by an outside bamboo ladder, with no water or toilet on top. A raised concrete platform (chowki) 1.2 km away can hold about 250 people. Two country boats are available, carrying 12 and 8 persons per trip, each round trip taking about 25 minutes. The nearest high ground is 3 km away, and the road at 2 km is already 40 cm under water.
In 2017 the flood here lasted four days, and several families say they will stay to guard their belongings and cattle.
1. Set out the first four actions the headmaster and volunteers should take between 6:55 p.m. and 8:25 p.m., in order, with reasons.
Read the worked answer
1. Amplify the warning (6:55–7:05). A single SMS from one official is thin evidence, but there is no time to verify it formally. Use the temple bell, a hand mike and door-to-door shouting, and ask each ward volunteer to report back who has been reached. Do not rely on phones.
2. Move the 46 most vulnerable first (7:05–8:25). The boats carry 20 persons per round trip and take 25 minutes, so in 80 minutes only about three trips - roughly 60 people - are possible. Reserve that capacity for the 40 elderly or disabled, the 6 pregnant women and small children, and send them to the chowki, which has a solid floor and a roof.
3. Send the walking groups now, not later. Everyone able to walk should leave in ward groups along the known higher path to high ground while the water is still ankle-deep, with a named leader per group and a count at departure and arrival.
4. Prepare the school roof as a fallback. Secure the ladder with rope, carry up drinking water, a torch, dry matches, a first-aid kit and a rope, and put one volunteer in charge. It is for those cut off, not a general shelter.
Reason for the order: the scarce resources are boat-hours and daylight; the irreversible risk is water depth on the routes.
2. Why is 'move all 900 people to the chowki' not a workable plan, and what principle should guide the choice?
Read the worked answer
The capacity does not exist. The chowki holds about 250 people; 900 would be more than three times its capacity, with no water, sanitation or cooking for a four-day flood. The boats can lift at most 20 per trip and complete about 2.5 trips an hour - some 50 people an hour in ideal conditions, less in the dark with the elderly. In 90 minutes they can move about 60 people. Walking 1.2 km through rising water takes 30–40 minutes for a fit adult and far longer for an elderly person, and the water is rising 15 cm an hour.
The principle is the nearest safe place, matched to the person. Options are not 'the chowki or nothing'. They are layered: the school roof for those nearest it and unable to walk far; the chowki for the vulnerable who can be boated; high ground for those who can walk now. Each group goes to the closest place that will actually be above the expected water level for four days.
A second principle follows: do not overload one site. Concentrating 900 people on a platform built for 250 would create a new emergency - dehydration, sanitation and panic - on the first night. Success is measured by nobody drowning, not by everyone being in the same place.
3. A family refuses to leave because of their cattle and belongings. What should the volunteer do, and what should they not do?
Read the worked answer
Do: find out what exactly is holding them - cattle, grain, documents, a locked house. Then remove the excuse rather than argue with the person.
- Offer a livestock route: untie the cattle and drive them to the raised road and embankment, which stay above this flood level, and assign one able adult from the ward to a named cattle point, so guarding has a place and a person.
- Ask them to send the children, the elderly and the documents now, even if one adult stays behind.
- Give a specific time: 'the path at the culvert will be waist-deep by 9 p.m.' Concrete deadlines move people better than general warnings.
- Record the names, house locations and number of people staying, pass the list to the Panchayat disaster committee, and arrange a boat check at first light.
Do not: use physical force or drag anyone out; spend scarce boat capacity on persuasion; promise that the cattle or the house will be safe, because nobody can promise that; or stop warning the family simply because they have refused once.
Reason: the volunteer's duty is to make the safe choice possible and to keep a record, not to win the argument.