Why we pre-position supplies before the monsoon, not after
The seventy-two hours after a flood decide the next six months. Here is how we use them.
India's floods are seasonal. Their location varies; their arrival does not. That makes them a logistics problem, not a surprise.
A household that receives food, clean water and shelter within the first week usually recovers. One that does not often sells land or sends a child to work — a decision that outlasts the flood by years.
So we buy and store before the season, in districts we already work in, with partners who are already there. It is less photogenic than a convoy arriving, and it is the reason the convoy can arrive at all.