A Hurricane’s Aftermath May Spur Up To 11,000 Deaths
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Tropical storms and hurricanes like Helene could indirectly cause up to 11,000 deaths in the 15 years that follow the initial destruction. Hurricane Helene may havealready hammeredtheSoutheast, but its lethal aftermath could last a decade or more.
Tropical cyclones, which include hurricaneslike Heleneand other whirling storms,boost local death rates for up to 15 yearsafterwhippingalong U.S. coastlines, scientists report October 2 inNature. Each storm may indirectly cause between 7,000 and 11,000 deaths, estimate University of California, Berkeley environmental economist Rachel Young and Stanford University economist Solomon Hsiang.
That's a Mount Everest of an estimate compared to the official number of deaths - 24 -thatthe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration attributes totheaveragestorm in the team's analysis.The resultssuggest that hurricanes and tropical storms are a much greater public health concern than anyone previously thought," Young says.
Usingastatisticalmodel, she and Hsiang analyzed the impact of all 501 tropical cyclones that hit thecontiguous United Statesfrom 1930 to 2015. Theymeasured changes in mortalityforup to20 years after each of these storms. Their analysis suggests that an individual hurricane may indirectly lead to thousands of lives lost.And taken together, the storms couldhavespurredas many as5percent of all deathsover that time period.Infants were particularly vulnerable, as were Black populations, the team found.
Young and Hsiang don't know all the ways hurricanes may contribute to mortality, but they have some ideas. It's possible the stress of a surviving such a storm, orthepollution left in the wake of destruction, harms people's health (SN: 10/1/24). Or maybe local governments have less money to spend on healthcare after rebuilding ravaged infrastructure. It could be some combination of these and other factors,Youngsays. She's interested indigging intowhat's going on.
In the meantime,Youngthinks her team's work highlights the need for new disaster response polices - ones that account for hurricanes' impact long term.We really pull together after these disasters to help people immediately in the aftermath," she says. But we need to be thinking about these folks long after those initial responses are over."
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