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posted by janrinok on Saturday October 05, @08:54PM   Printer-friendly

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 have already hammered the Southeast, but its lethal aftermath could last a decade or more.

Tropical cyclones, which include hurricanes like Helene and other whirling storms, boost local death rates for up to 15 years after whipping along U.S. coastlines, scientists report October 2 in Nature. 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 — that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration attributes to the average storm in the team’s analysis. The results suggest that “hurricanes and tropical storms are a much greater public health concern than anyone previously thought,” Young says. 

Using a statistical model, she and Hsiang analyzed the impact of all 501 tropical cyclones that hit the contiguous United States from 1930 to 2015. They measured changes in mortality for up to 20 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 could have spurred as many as 5 percent of all deaths over 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, or the pollution left in the wake of destruction, harms people’s health (SN: 10/1/24). Or maybe local governments have less money to spend on health care after rebuilding ravaged infrastructure. It could be some combination of these and other factors, Young says. She’s interested in digging into what’s going on. 

In the meantime, Young thinks 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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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05, @09:20PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05, @09:20PM (#1375888)

    Fifteen. Years.

    Wow. We've created a *whole* new class of "responsible". "Oh he got hit by a car yesterday? Damn, that hurricane a decade and a half ago really has lingering effects.."

    The butterfly effect (bullshit effect?) is now in full social swing.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by DrkShadow on Saturday October 05, @09:23PM (1 child)

      by DrkShadow (1404) on Saturday October 05, @09:23PM (#1375889)

      Not only that, but ignoring all of the other hurricanes, weather, area disasters, housing conditions, political movements, etc in that time span? Just to blame one hurricane?

      These kinds of cranks need to be laughed out of the scientific sphere and have the door slammed on them on their way out. They're bad for everyone, and the reputation of "science" generally.

      • (Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05, @09:38PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05, @09:38PM (#1375892)

        There was a misprint in the summary. It was supposed to say,

        but its legal aftermath could last a decade or more.

        Many will die waiting for their insurance payouts

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 05, @11:10PM (2 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday October 05, @11:10PM (#1375901)

      On the other hand, I had a coworker in decent health, managing his diabetes in his early 50s. After hurricane Andrew hit, destroyed his home and neighborhood, he went into a deep depression atypical for him in his previous life. Stopped taking care of his diabetes and was dead within 9 months. That was a pretty direct responsibility trace to the hurricane.

      My step father was in the hospital that had the roof ripped off during a hurricane two years ago. The ensuing chaos wasn't good for anyone's health, but few if any deaths were attributed to that specific event. However, later hospital bed BINGO got him a case of COVID which finished him off quickly, and that chaos was directly attributable to earlier storm damage.

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      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06, @01:58AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06, @01:58AM (#1375912)

        That makes sense. Within the year, maybe not having resolved a whole lot, still feeling the impacts of things -- that makes sense.

        If you told me he was having trouble managing his diabetese 10 years later because of the hurricane that ripped the roof off his house, I would scoff at you.

        Anything over 2 years is: just your life. One 40th, or 1/30th, even, of your life. The hand you were dealt. Not any one thing, just life. Saying that a 7-day hurricane affects 1/6th of your life, or 1/4 of your entire life, is a joke.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06, @03:33AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06, @03:33AM (#1375920)

        > On the other hand, ......

        I'm going to guess that many things fit this pattern of trauma leading to untimely death. For example, 30 years ago a friend's high school son was rejected by his love interest and committed suicide. This put the whole family under stress. The mother's sister lived with them,almost like a second mother (in a good way) and a few months later she also committed suicide, apparently couldn't stand to live after losing her nephew.

        It seems a little narrow minded to single out tropical storms and hurricanes when there is stress everywhere.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by RamiK on Sunday October 06, @12:40AM

      by RamiK (1813) on Sunday October 06, @12:40AM (#1375907)

      Most in western NC don't have flood insurance* so there's going to be a significant rise in poverty-related mortality:

      Charlotte Hicks, a flood insurance expert in North Carolina who has led flood risk training and educational outreach for the state's Department of Insurance, said the reality is that many Helene survivors will never be made whole. Without flood insurance, some people may be able to rebuild with the help of charities but most others will be left to fend for themselves.

      “There will absolutely be people who will be financially devasted by this event,” Hicks said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

      Some may go into foreclosure or bankruptcy. Entire neighborhoods will likely never be rebuilt. There’s been water damage across the board, Hicks said, and for some, mudslides have even taken the land upon which their house once stood.

      ...

      Mark Friedlander, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group, said Helene is a “very manageable loss event,” and estimates insurer losses will range from about US$5 billion to US$8 billion. That’s compared to the insured losses from the Category 4 Hurricane Ian in September 2022 that was estimated in excess of US$50 billion.

      Friedlander and other experts point out that less than one per cent of the inland areas that sustained the most catastrophic flood damage were protected with flood insurance.

      “This is very common in inland communities across the country,” Friedlander said. “ Lack of flood insurance is a major insurance gap in the U.S., as only about six per cent of homeowners carry the coverage, mostly in coastal counties.”

      ( https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/homeowners-hit-by-hurricane-helene-face-the-grim-task-of-rebuilding-without-flood-insurance-1.7063492 [ctvnews.ca] )

      * https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article293479469.html [newsobserver.com]

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      compiling...
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 07, @01:52AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 07, @01:52AM (#1376048) Journal
      For me the ridiculous statement was "And taken together, the storms could have spurred as many as 5 percent of all deaths over that time period." That would put hurricanes (or rather hurricane cooties since no credible linkage for the alleged effect exists) at around the sixth highest [cdc.gov] cause of death in the US.

      It also makes me wonder what other events would generate massive amounts of death by the same statistical procedures? Perhaps rock concerts? Presidential elections? Windows releases? How many times more death would these things be responsible for than actually happened?
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06, @01:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06, @01:13AM (#1375909)

    The following is NOT from approved media.

    https://www.brighteon.com/abf35db3-d30e-44f2-a9ee-15be01b8d45e [brighteon.com]

    It's a lengthy video but no paywall. Does have skippable ads.

    It is from independent on-the-ground sources.

    Here is a site which links many of them.

    https://censored.news [censored.news]

    These are far-right sources. Some may consider my even posting this as fear-mongering, while others may see it as spreading when word.

    As Rod Serling would say: "Submitted for your approval."

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday October 06, @12:48PM (1 child)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Sunday October 06, @12:48PM (#1375949) Journal

    A flood may made for a good comparison, since hurricanes have storm surges and lots of rain that also cause flooding. Try this one: the water left behind by the flooding is often unhealthy. Polluted with rotting debris, becoming stagnant wherever it has pooled, soon a breeding ground for mosquitoes. We know that mosquitos are vectors for all kinds of thrilling diseases such as malaria, West Nile virus, and yellow fever. Further enhancing the troubles is the weakening of the ability to prevent and cure. Not going to be spraying for mosquitoes or making appointments with doctors until all sorts of services have been restored and messes cleaned up.

    It is thought that COVID-19 came from a population of animals in which it is endemic, and which had little to no contact with people, until people pushed into that animal's habitat. Storms can also drive animals to go places they never would have gone otherwise, thus providing opportunities for diseases to jump to other species.

    We tend to look only at the immediate. Another criticism I have of disaster evaluation is the excessive focus on the body count, aka deaths. Reporting that a hurricane caused 25 deaths suggests it is a less severe disaster than a bad bus crash resulting in more than 25 deaths, which is of course absurd. I think Fukushima broke that mindset, being a major disaster in which no one died, not right away.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 06, @02:05PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday October 06, @02:05PM (#1375956)

      It's not just hurricanes, all sorts of infrequent highly destructive events, including wars, riots, fires, mudslides and earthquakes have a significant negative effect on the built infrastructure. Generally, we build that infrastructure for our benefit, and loss of it has some level of negative impact.

      The whole "that what does not kill me makes me stronger" side of things is a nice positive attitude to take, but until the lost infrastructure is replaced, it's somewhat delusional.

      In the "old days" like hurricane Andrew, insurance payouts almost came close to compensation for the losses, and in some pockets things were built back better than before, but mostly not. The insured damage payout percentage is not improving over time, and there is also the very real argument that all the disaster rebuilding takes away from progress in non impacted areas.

      Excuse me while I go out and do some chainsaw work to clean up from Helene before Milton hits. My recent "Marginal ECG" result was no doubt a knock on effect of the storm (and other) stress, but if I have a heart attack later today, did the storms do it?

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      🌻🌻 [google.com]
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