While Orissa is yet to recover from the shock of the unprecedented natural disaster, the Super Cyclone of October 99, followed by the widest spread famine subsequently in 2000; the State is now face to face with another natural calamity of vast magnitude, that is, the floods of July 2001. Compared with the three major floods in the post-independence period, i.e., in 1955, 1982 & 1994, the current flood of July 2001 is a unique one for its ever-widest spread, the longest duration and extensiveness of damage and devastation.