Stepping Up Humanitarian Operations: Lessons From Tropical Cyclone Ockhi

The relevance and demand for humanitarian operations is increasing every year, as evidenced by highly erratic climatic patterns and frequent natural disasters such as landslides, earthquakes, droughts, floods, and hurricanes. In this paper, we discuss the case of “Ockhi”, a Category 3 tropical cyclone that hit the Indian Subcontinent in late 2017. The magnitude, spontaneity, and, severity of such events, which are referred to as force majeure, puts enormous pressure on humanitarian organizations and supply chains globally, which are often constrained with limited resources, but entrusted with multiple roles, including but not limited to functions of information dissemination, coordination & control, agile deployment, mobilization of forces, logistics, search & rescue, salvage, recovery, and reconstruction. Our case research indicates that clustered, hierarchical coordination mechanisms using functional strengths of participating agencies, considering the magnitude of the calamity, is more effective in delivery of services related to humanitarian operations.