Study finds dramatic undercount of US hurricane deaths

By Daniel Cusick | 10/03/2024 01:32 PM EDT

Stanford University researchers found storm-related deaths can occur as much as 15 years after a tropical cyclone’s landfall.

Laurie Lilliott stands amid the wreckage of her destroyed home in Dekle Beach in rural Taylor County, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Kate Payne)

A homeowner is seen amid the wreckage of her home in Taylor County, Florida, following Hurricane Helene. A new study says that displacement from homes is a factor in higher storm deaths. Kate Payne/AP

The standard post-disaster window for tabulating deaths from hurricanes and tropical storms is much too short, resulting in a dramatic undercount of storm-related mortality in the continental United States since 1930, Stanford University researchers found in a new study.

The average Atlantic tropical storm kills between 7,000 and 11,000 more people on average than the current government estimate of 24 deaths per storm, and storm-related deaths can occur as much as 15 years after a tropical storm makes landfall, the study published Wednesday in Nature found. The researchers cited “delayed downstream outcomes, indirectly caused by the disaster.”

Specifically, they point to the loss of critical medical care and medication, fraying of social bonds and displacement from homes as reasons for the higher estimated death count.

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“These findings suggest that the tropical cyclone climate, previously thought to be unimportant for broader public health outcomes, is a meaningful underlying driver for the distribution of mortality risk in the continental United States,” the researchers found.

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