Science Source
An analysis of coastal and inland fatalities in landfalling US hurricanes
- States that the deadly reach of a hurricane is not limited to storm-surge zones
- States that about 80% of direct US hurricane fatalities since 1970 occurred outside of landfall counties, with most of these fatalities caused by inland flooding
- Constructs a geographic information system database combining the location and cause of fatalities, estimated wind speeds, and rainfall amounts for the entire track of the storm for landfalling US hurricanes between 1970 and 2007
- Analyzes the determinants of total fatalities and deaths due to freshwater drowning and wind
- Finds that inclusion of inland fatalities results in no downward trend in lethality over the period, in contrast to prior research
- Finds that local storm conditions significantly affect lethality, as one-inch and one-knot increases in rainfall and wind increase total fatalities by 28 and 4%
- Finds that rainfall significantly increases freshwater-drowning deaths and is insignificant for wind deaths, while the opposite relation holds for wind speed
- Finds that while coastal counties do not exhibit a significantly higher amount of lethality risk versus inland counties for total or wind-driven fatalities, freshwater-drowning fatalities occur most frequently in inland counties along the center of the storm path and its outer county tiers as we have defined them
Related Content
Headline
Jun 25, 2017 | The Weather Channel
Remnants of Tropical Storm Cindy: Emergency Declared in Two Michigan Counties
Headline
Jun 25, 2017 | Michigan Radio
Assessing the damage from flooding in Midland & Isabella counties
Headline
Jun 23, 2017 | Washington Post
A terrifying threat from Tropical Storm Cindy: Floating masses of deadly fire ants
Headline
Jun 23, 2017 | Weather Underground
Tropical Depression Cindy Slogs Through Arkansas
