Visakhapatnam: Milk sachets have been stocked adequately, mobile phones charged to the full and so are the desktops and laptops, candles and torchlights have been kept ready, essential supplies stocked in advance and buckets of water filled to the brim.

Barring a few short pauses, Visakhapatnam witnessed incessant downpour as the day progressed from moderate showers initially on Monday morning. Apparently, people knew too well how to be prepared for cyclone ‘Montha’.

Back in 2014, when severe cyclonic storm Hudhud ravaged the City of Destiny along with other coastal parts of North Andhra, people were caught unawares by its intensity. Back then, little did they realise that the severity of the cyclone would disrupt normal life to that magnitude. There was little preparedness for the calamity.

“But not now. Thanks to the repeated alerts highlighted in newspapers, satellite channels and social media platforms, we have stocked the essential supplies well in advance. And there is literally nothing we ran out of stock,” emphasises V Suhasini, a resident of Gopalapatnam.

Sharing his past experience, G Ramesh, a software employee, recalls, “Today (October 27), I woke up to the sound of a whooshing wind. The scene that unfolded from my window brought back the memories of Hudhud. Despite the doors and windows remaining shut, they did not stop the rainwater trickling into my apartment from the gaps. However, cyclone ‘Montha’ did not seem to be as menacing as Hudhud.”

Even as the power supply was disrupted in some areas in the city, it was restored after a while. However, the alert residents made arrangements much before the power restoration. “We filled up empty buckets with water so that we do not run out of it like how we did during cyclone Hudhud,” says S Srinivasa Rao, a resident of HB Colony.

Despite the downour, food delivery aggregators got busy throughout the day as orders for meal deliveries poured in.