On the beach road in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, the wind did most of the talking. Beaches were closed, rain kept coming, and by evening the city corporation said Cyclone Arnab had uprooted 206 trees across the city. Thirty clearing teams had managed to clear 55 of them by 6 pm, The Hindu reported. Sanitation workers were asked to stay out through the night.
One death already shows why the warnings about waterlogged roads matter. A 65-year-old man died at Mangalapalem in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday after he came into contact with live electrical wires that had snapped and fallen into water, The Hindu reported, citing sources and Duvvada police. It is the kind of accident that happens when a storm is still hours from landfall, and it is a reason to stay off flooded streets after dark.
## The track has narrowed to Yanam
At 2.30 pm on Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department placed the very severe cyclonic storm about 140 km from Kakinada and 170 km from Visakhapatnam, The Hindu reported. It is expected to cross the coast just south of Yanam by Wednesday forenoon.
The wind forecast tells the story of the night ahead. The IMD Cyclone Warning Centre in Visakhapatnam said coastal winds would rise to 90 to 100 kmph, gusting to 110 kmph, on Tuesday night, then reach **125 to 135 kmph**, gusting to 150 kmph, as the storm crosses the coast early on Wednesday and into the forenoon. By Wednesday evening the winds should ease to 90 to 100 kmph, and by Thursday morning to 50 to 60 kmph.
A storm surge of **1 to 2 metres** could flood low lying areas near Kakinada and Yanam, the IMD said. The highest warning, Great Danger Signal No. X, has been hoisted at Kakinada port, with Signal No. IX at Visakhapatnam, Gangavaram and Bheemunipatnam ports.
This is a sharper, stronger landfall forecast than the one in our morning report on the [61 trains cancelled](https://auindia.in/news/cyclone-arnab-trains-cancelled-andhra-coast-oct-28), which carried winds gusting to 140 kmph. The track is now narrower, and the wind numbers are higher. That change, more than any single bulletin, is why Tuesday evening feels different from Tuesday morning.
## The hardest part is not the wind, it is leaving home
Nearly **89,000** people on the Kakinada coast are being moved to 101 relief camps, The Hindu reported, and Odisha plans to move 48,000 people. Kakinada Collector M.N. Harendhira Prasad told ANI that all coastal villages and people in vulnerable places in the district had been moved to shelters, and residents had been asked to stay indoors.
Yanam shows the other side of that effort. The Puducherry enclave, close to where the storm is expected to cross, has set up 20 relief camps for nearly 5,000 people, but only about 2,000 people had moved in by Tuesday evening, officials told The Hindu. Most residents were unwilling to leave their homes, Yanam Regional Administrator Shivraj Meena said, forcing officials to deploy National Disaster Response Force personnel and local police to persuade them. About 100 NDRF personnel are stationed in Yanam, a town of more than 55,600 people.
It is easy to read that reluctance as stubbornness. It is usually something simpler: people want to guard a house, a shop, or livestock, and a relief camp feels like giving up control for a night. The officials knocking on doors in Yanam are not arguing with a forecast. They are arguing with that calculation, house by house, hours before the wind peaks.
The wider mobilisation is large. The Andhra Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority said cyclone alerts had been sent to 2.70 crore phones in 18 districts, shelters had been set up at 2,131 locations in 20 districts, and 1,351 pregnant women had already been moved to hospitals, PTI reported via The Hindu. Hospitals have 8,281 emergency beds, 1,274 ambulances and 1,087 medical teams ready.
## Trains, flights and a timetable that keeps changing
Railways cancellations kept climbing through the day. The Indian Express tracker, citing the Railways, put the total at **95 trains** cancelled, up from at least 72 reported earlier in the day. South Central Railway also warned that more trains could be cancelled or diverted on routes through Telangana, where the IMD has issued a red alert for Khammam, Bhadradri Kothagudem, Mulugu and Mahabubabad districts on Wednesday.
Flights are hit too. Sixteen flights were cancelled at Visakhapatnam airport and five at Vijayawada airport on Tuesday, officials told The Hindu. Fifteen flights have already been cancelled at Vijayawada for Wednesday, including all 12 IndiGo services there.
Passengers should check the train number and the date of travel before leaving home, and use the IRCTC, RailOne and NTES apps or dial 139 for the latest status, as South Central Railway advised. A printed timetable is not reliable this week.
### Rain far beyond the coast
Visakhapatnam city has already had over 100 mm of rain at several places since Tuesday morning, The Hindu reported, with about 122 mm recorded at the 16th Police Battalion campus between 8.30 am and 4 pm. Heavy rain is also forecast for parts of Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
Ranchi and West Singhbhum districts in Jharkhand have closed schools on October 28 and 29, and eight to nine districts in the state are likely to be affected, officials said. The storm will not stop at the Andhra coast. It will spend the next two days as rain, waterlogging and disrupted travel across central and eastern India.
That is the part of a cyclone that gets forgotten once the landfall headline passes. The wind makes the news. The rain makes the next two days difficult for people who never saw the sea.
When the storm formed on Monday, the warning was a track on a map, as we reported in [Cyclone Arnab Forms, Red Alert for Andhra, Odisha](https://auindia.in/news/cyclone-arnab-forms-red-alert-andhra-odisha-oct-28). Tonight it is 140 km from Kakinada, with seawater already flooding parts of Uppada near Kakinada and trees down in Visakhapatnam. If you live anywhere from Anakapalli to Bapatla, tonight is not the night to wait for a clearer forecast. Charge the phone, keep the 1800-425-0009 Visakhapatnam city helpline in mind if you are in the city, stay away from waterlogged roads and snapped wires, and let the teams knocking on doors in Yanam do their job. The storm will cross in the morning. Whether people are out of its way by then is a decision made tonight, door by door.