Write a full summary of lesson weathering the storm in erasama.
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Years later after Prashant lost his mother, he visited his friend residing in the Erasma, a coastal town in Orissa. That fateful day, there was a heavy storm followed by rain. This caused major havoc in the town and trees were uprooted. Water seeped into everyone’s houses and covered everyone up to the neck. His friend’s family and Prashant took shelter on top of the roof and survived by eating the coconuts that had fallen there. This continued for two days.
After two days, the severity of the storm decreased. Although his friend advised him to stay back for a few more days, Prashant made his way through the waters to his village. He could not find his family anywhere. Finally, after a lot of searching, he found them at the Red Cross Shelter.
Prashant then got together the people of his village and divided them into various groups. Each group was assigned a separate job. For example, women attended to orphaned children and men procured food from various sources.
Prashant was a young boy of nineteen years of age. He belonged to Kalikuda, a village in the coastal state of Odisha. He had lost his mother seven years ago.
On 27 October 1999, when he was visiting a friend in Ersama, a super cyclone hit the area. There was large scale devastation. The gushy winds and rains continued for two days. They remained on the rooftop of the house and survived on the tender coconuts from the coconut trees that had fallen on the roof. As the rain stopped, Prashant left for his home as he feared the worst for his family. He took a stick to help him find the road. At times, he had to swim through the floodwaters. On the way, he met two friends and their uncle and the group moved together. They came across dead bodies of human beings and animals which floated with the current. As they crossed villages, not even a single house could be seen. Prashant’s house was shattered too and he saw the belongings hanging on the branches of the trees. He wept as he felt that he had lost his beloved. He went to the Red Cross shelter in search of his family. There Prashant met his maternal grandmother. She was elated to see him alive as they had not expected that he would have survived the storm. Prashant saw a crowd of 2500 people at the shelter. Many had lost their families in the disaster. They were grief-stricken as the catastrophe had snatched everything. For the last 2 days, they had survived on coconuts but they were running out of stock. Prashant took control of the situation. He formed a group with some elders and young people. They forced the merchant to give them the stock of rice and were successful. After 4 days the crowd ate a meal. Then the group of volunteers cleaned the shelter and tended to the injured people. Prashant engaged the widows to work in the NGO named “Food for work”. He engaged the children by arranging sports matches for them. The volunteers managed to set up foster families comprising of the widows, orphaned children and lone men who would form a family and support each other. Like this Prashant overcame his grief and learned to smile even in the face of adversities.