Tropical Cyclone Sidr: How Bad Will This Be?

You wouldn't necessarily know it from looking at most major American news sources, but there's a massive tropical cyclone in the Bay of Bengal right now, and it's heading right for one of the most vulnerable areas on the planet. If the most recent storm track predictions are accurate, the eye of the storm will most likely make landfall somewhere between Calcutta and the mouth of the main channel of the Ganges. Currently, the most optimistic forecasts suggest that the wind speeds at landfall will be in the neighborhood of 115 knots (132 mph) - and there's some data suggesting that it could be much worse.

The phrase that most of the people paying attention are using to describe the situation is "potentially catastrophic." That's accurate, but it doesn't convey the true magnitude of the threat very well, so let's try plainer language: there is a very real possibility that this storm could kill more than 100,000 people by this time tomorrow. That's not an exaggeration. That's something that's happened before when strong storms have hit this area. In fact, it's happened twice just since 1970.

There are ten million people living in threatened areas on the Bangladeshi side of the border alone. The available shelter space will only hold about 500,000. People are being told to evacuate, but most of them will have to evacuate on foot, and the worst of the storm is now less than a day away - and storms don't have to stop to rest their feet. Chris Mooney sums the situation up well when he says, "it's time to panic."

Unfortunately, there's not a hell of a lot we can do right now except wait, and watch, and hope for the best.