Workers, community members, and business owners clean up debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Marshall, North Carolina, on September 30th, 2024. | Photo: Getty Images
Tropical storms take many more lives than officially recorded, according to a sobering study published today in the journal Nature. It comes as people across the Southeastern US scramble to find loved ones in the wreckage of Hurricane Helene.
The average tropical storm or hurricane leads to the early deaths of between 7,170 and 11,430 people, the researchers estimate. That’s astronomically higher than the average of 24 direct deaths per storm documented in government records spanning more than half a century.
“We were quite stunned. So, if folks are surprised by these results, you know, we were right there, too,” says Rachel Young, a coauthor of the study who is an environmental economist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of…