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.”
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 05, @11:10PM (2 children)
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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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06, @01:58AM
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
> 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.