Uprooted trees and lamp posts will have to be cleared and loose wires, including electric cables, removed at the earliest, police officers have been told as part of the briefing to prepare the force for Cyclone Dana.

"Restoring traffic at the earliest remains the top priority. Each traffic guard is provided with at least two chainsaw machines. Necessary back-up will be provided from the divisional control rooms and the one at the police headquarters in Lalbazar," said a senior police officer.

"If the roads remain clear, emergency operations can be carried out swiftly."

At a meeting to discuss the preparedness for Dana across 10 divisions of Kolkata Police on Wednesday afternoon, the officers in charge of the police stations and the traffic guards were instructed to keep teams ready so they can rush with chain-saws and electric cutters to clear roads of fallen trees and other items.

The officers have also been told to store fuel for the gadgets at the police stations and the traffic guards. Senior officers should liaise with their counterparts in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the Disaster Management Group (DMG) for speedy interventions.

Dana is scheduled to hit the Odisha-Bengal coastline as a severe cyclonic storm between Thursday night and Friday morning, unleashing a peak wind speed of up to 120km an hour, the Met office has said.

On Wednesday, teams of officers from Kolkata Police's river traffic police and the port division visited the ghats along the Hooghly, warning boatmen and others over loudhailers to stay away from the river.

A unified command centre has been set up at Lalbazar with officers from Kolkata Police, KMC, Metro Railway, fire and essential services department, National Disaster Response Force, DMG and the Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners.

The command centre will remain operational at least till Friday and the team will track the storm route 24X7.

A team comprising eight personnel from the DMG and 15 police constables will be on a "high-alert" mode at each of the divisional offices of the city police, senior officers said.

Each team will have ropes, spades, crowbars, hand-held lights and other gadgets required to clear roads and start emergency relief work.

The officers in charge of the police stations have been asked to team up with civic officials and remove those who spend their nights on footpaths and under flyovers to night shelters.

"All police stations have been asked to start evacuating people living in dilapidated buildings and houses in low-lying areas immediately after the command centre issues a warning," an officer said. "The police stations have a list of places where the evacuees can be shifted."