As of October 2, the death toll from Hurricane Helene was at least 177, with many more people still missing, per ABC News. But a new study suggests that the storm will continue to be responsible for loss of life for as long as 15 years into the future.
That translates to between 3.6 million and 5.2 million total deaths during the study period — more than all the U.S. fatalities from car crashes, infectious diseases, and wars combined, according to the study. By contrast, official records count an average of just 24 deaths per storm, focused primarily on drownings or other traumas in the immediate aftermath, the study authors say.
“In any given month, people are dying earlier than they would have if the storm hadn’t hit their community,” said the senior study author, Solomon Hsiang, PhD, a professor of environmental social sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability in California, in a statement. “A big storm will hit, and there’s all these cascades of effects where cities are rebuilding or households are displaced or social networks are broken. These cascades have serious consequences for public health.”
The Fallout From Helene Could Last for Years
It’s not hard to envision how Hurricane Helene, the latest storm to strike the United States, could contribute to fatalities for years to come, says Sue Anne Bell, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing in Ann Arbor with expertise in disaster response, community health, and emergency care.
“If you follow just a hypothesized chain of events as in North Carolina right now … your house is flooded, as is the rest of the town. You’ve lost your medication in the flood. You have to evacuate and miss an important medical appointment. You are eating poor-quality fast food or shelf-stable meals at the shelter you’ve evacuated to. You are spending more money while away from home than you budgeted for the month. And along with all that, you have the mental impact of knowing your home is severely damaged, as is your local community,” says Dr. Bell, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
“Just anecdotally, it makes sense how recovering from a situation like this could take years, and also deeply affect long-term health trajectories,” Bell says.
Helene and other hurricanes can also mean years of exposure to polluted and contaminated air, water, and food, as well as financial and psychological stressors due to the disruption of daily life, loss of loved ones, property damage, lack of employment, or relocation, says Naresh Kumar, PhD, an environmental health professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
“Such impacts increase the risk of mortality due to several chronic diseases, including diabetes, mental illness, suicide, and cardiovascular diseases,” Dr. Kumar says.
Hurricanes Tied to Excess Deaths in the U.S.
Overall, more than 3 in 100 deaths nationwide are related to tropical cyclones, including both short-term and long-term fatalities that happen in the wake of these disasters, the study discovered.
Black people are more than three times more likely to die of hurricane-related causes than white individuals, the study also found.
Researchers estimated that roughly 1 in 4 infant deaths and 15 percent of fatalities among people from 1 to 44 years old are due to hurricane-related causes.
One limitation of the study is that researchers estimated the incidence of tropical storms based on wind speeds, and didn’t account for storm surges, rainfall, or flooding. Nor were they able to estimate the mortality impact of multiple storms striking the same community in rapid succession. They also lacked the detailed demographic information needed to get a clearer picture of who might be most at risk.
Storms Pose Both Short-Term and Long-Term Harm to Health
Right after a storm strikes, deaths are typically due to things like drowning in flood waters, traumatic injuries from buildings collapsing or falling trees, car accidents that occur when people try to escape the storm, electrocution from downed wires, or carbon monoxide from improperly vented generators, says David Abramson, PhD, MPH, a clinical professor and the director of the Center for Public Health Disaster Science at New York University in New York City.
“The best way to avoid these traumatic deaths is to not be exposed to them — evacuate prior to the storm,” says Dr. Abramson, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
