From its mundane work of gathering data, issuing guidelines, and cobbling together disaster management plans, the State Emergency Operations Centre (SEOC) under the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) shifts gear to a state of heightened activity with the onset of the monsoon.
And when the emergency mode is on, following an orange or red alert — indicating very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall in a 24-hour span — for two days in a row, it turns into a war room of sorts to gear up for a potential disaster.
The SEOC will bring all Grade-I officers from around 46 departments, including those of central agencies and the armed forces, to work together once a warning is issued. The process gets under way when a multi-tasking officer on duty takes up the weather feed from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) with the hazard analyst on duty.
