For the last 35 years or so, most Americans who have died during hurricane events are among the society’s most vulnerable people: They tend to be low-income, immigrants or people of color. They account for more than 90% of the death toll, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
The grim takeaways come from researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health who analyzed the 179 tropical cyclones that occurred in the Atlantic basin from 1988 to 2019. They looked at how those storms contributed to excess deaths — deaths beyond what are normally predicted for a given time frame after the storm — across the 1,200 U.S. counties that experienced at least one tropical cyclone during this period.
In total, the study estimated there were 3,112 excess deaths after hurricane winds initially subsided and another 15,590 fatalities after winds with violent storm force or gale strength dissipated. But in those hard-hit areas, some communities fared much worse than others.
On the researcher team’s top 20 list of U.S. counties with the deadliest hurricane events, the New York metro area made three appearances — all resulting from Hurricane Sandy. Nassau County came in fourth with 178 excess deaths; Staten Island was 15th with 104 fatalities and Brooklyn was 19th with 84 deaths. Ocean County, New Jersey was not far behind with 53 excess deaths during Sandy.
These excess death counts include more than the people who died during the storm or as a direct result of it, such those who drowned. They also account for cases in which residents may have died months after the storm from a condition that was either exacerbated by or a result of the weather event, such as high blood pressure or cardiovascular disease. Similar outcomes can happen to people with respiratory, neurological, parasitic and infectious diseases.
Despite New York’s high ranking, flood-prone counties in southern U.S. states make up most of the list. Louisiana…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply