October 2, 2024<\/p>\n
4 min read<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Hurricanes Kill People for Years after the Initial Disaster<\/p>\n
The average tropical cyclone in the U.S. ultimately causes about 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths, new research finds<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
By Andrea Thompson<\/a><\/p>\n The Rocky Broad River flows into Lake Lure and overflows the town with debris from Chimney Rock, N.C., after heavy rains from Hurricane Helene on September 28, 2024. Approximately six feet of debris piled on the bridge from Lake Lure to Chimney Rock, blocking access.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Melissa Sue Gerrits\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n More than 160 people have lost their lives to the ferocious winds and catastrophic flooding wrought by Hurricane Helene<\/a>. But the true death toll will take years\u2014likely more than a decade\u2014to unfold.<\/p>\n A new study published on Wednesday in Nature<\/i> found that the average tropical cyclone in the U.S. ultimately causes about 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths<\/a> (those beyond what would typically be expected), compared with the average of 24 direct deaths reported in official statistics. The study\u2019s authors estimated that, between 1950 and 2015, tropical storms and hurricanes caused between 3.6 million and 5.2 million excess deaths\u2014more than those caused by traffic deaths or infectious diseases. And such storm-related deaths involve people from some groups more than others, marking an \u201cimportant and understudied contributor to health in the United States, particularly for young or Black populations,\u201d the authors wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are individuals who are dying years before they would have otherwise,\u201d says study co-author Rachel Young, an environmental economist at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing<\/a>. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n This study is part of a burgeoning trend: assessing the full health consequences of the growing number of disasters fueled by climate change<\/a>. Epidemiologists and other experts have increasingly been emphasizing that heat wave deaths are significantly underestimated<\/a>, and recent research has found that wildfire smoke kills thousands of people in California<\/a>\u2014many more than the actual flames. \u201cWe thought that there was something similar with hurricanes,\u201d Young says.<\/p>\n So she and Stanford University economist Solomon Hsiang looked at hurricanes that hit the U.S. from 1930 to 2015, as well as mortality data and used statistical methods to compare a state\u2019s deaths before a storm with those that occurred over the course of 20 years after from 1950 to 2015. \u201cWe thought we\u2019d see maybe six months or a year of a delayed effect,\u201d Young says, but data showed excess deaths occurring for 15 years after a storm. \u201cWe were so stunned,\u201d she says, that the researchers spent years testing and retesting to make sure the effect was real.<\/p>\n Zane Wolf; Source: \u201cMortality Caused by Tropical Cyclones in the United States,\u201d by Rachel Young and Solomon Hsiang, in Nature<\/i>. Published online October 2, 2024<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Thinking beyond the data, the duration of the effect makes sense because \u201cthese are huge events,\u201d Young says. \u201cLook at what\u2019s going on with Helene.\u201d Families may have to spend months in damaged or mold-riddled homes before repairs are made. People may have to use their savings for repairs, leaving less money for their health care for years. People may be forced to move and live farther away from crucial social support networks. And these events exert a considerable mental health burden<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s devastating to the individuals, and it’s devastating to the local and state governments, too,\u201d Young says, noting that other research shows these governments experience budget declines<\/a> for many years after a hurricane. For those affected, she adds, \u201cyou\u2019re in a version of the world where you have less money, you have less resources, you have more pollution exposure\u201d\u2014a bad combination when it comes to staying healthy.<\/p>\n When breaking out the data by age groups, the study found that people aged 65 and older had the largest number of storm-related excess deaths. But when the higher general probability of death in this age range was factored in, this group\u2019s storm death risk was smaller than that of others. The biggest risk was found to be for infants under the age of one, with almost all of these deaths occurring within less than two years after a storm. Young says that this effect could be influenced by people\u2019s inability to afford prenatal care in a storm\u2019s wake, as well as stress or other factors.<\/p>\n The risk of death was also higher among Black people than it was among white people, even though the white population that was exposed to storms was much larger than the exposed Black population.<\/p>\n Zane Wolf; Source:\u201cMortality Caused by Tropical Cyclones in the United States,\u201d by Rachel Young and Solomon Hsiang, in Nature<\/i>. Published online October 2, 2024 (data and reference figure<\/i>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The analysis further showed that \u201cthe mortality response isn\u2019t going down over time,\u201d Young says, meaning storms today have the same long-tail mortality impact as they did decades ago. Young and Hsiang don\u2019t know exactly why this is the case and say it will take more research to dig into the reasons.<\/p>\n That mortality finding particularly struck Eugenio Paglino, a postdoctoral researcher at the Helsinki Institute of Demography and Population Health, who was not involved with the new study. He says that on first reading the paper\u2019s abstract, he thought the numbers of excess deaths the authors found \u201cseemed pretty large,\u201d but he felt they did a thorough job of checking the robustness of the results. He would like to see additional research examine what might actually be causing these excess deaths and further bolster the findings.<\/p>\n Young and Hsiang also want to see this kind of follow-up research\u2014and hope to do some themselves. It\u2019s a necessary step toward the ultimate goal of informing policymakers of what is needed to safeguard communities in the face of the growing climate disaster. As Helene shows, \u201clocal and state governments and first responders are doing heroic work to help people after disasters,\u201d Young says. \u201cWe don\u2019t want their efforts to be in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Debris](\"https:\/\/static.scientificamerican.com\/dam\/m\/529cd204a75f0f72\/original\/Debris_from_hurricane_helene.jpg?w=600\")
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