How do you save a million people from a cyclone? Odisha has the answer

Cyclone Fani slammed into Odisha on Friday morning with the force of a major hurricane, packing 120 mile per hour winds

Flights were cancelled. Train service was out.

And one of the biggest storms in years was bearing down on Odisha, where millions of people live cheek by jowl in a low-lying coastal area in mud-and-stick shacks.
 

But government authorities in Odisha, hardly stood still. To warn people of what was coming, they deployed everything they had: 2.6 million text messages, 43,000 volunteers, nearly 1,000 emergency workers, television commercials, coastal sirens, buses, police officers, and public address systems blaring the same message on a loop, in local language, in very clear terms: “A cyclone is coming. Get to the shelters.”

It