Catastrophic flash floods killed dozens of people in eastern Kentucky in July 2022. Here, homes in Jackson, Ky., are flooded with water.
That's a problem, the federal government has long acknowledged, because who dies as a result of extreme weather, as well as how they die, is important. That public health information can help protect people from increasingly frequent disasters and can even spur policies that address the reliance on fossil fuels at the root of global warming. And inconsistency over which disaster-related deaths get counted can lead to frustration and even financial losses for the families of those who died.
The lack of reliable data is a problem, says Rep. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., who sponsored the bill that led to the National Academies report, along with then-Sen. Kamala Harris."Death tolls are important," Velázquez says."They influence public perception about the scope of a disaster and often determine what federal resources are allocated in response."
But it's unclear how many people are dying in heat waves in the United States. In 2022, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported 279 heat-related deaths in the state, while the National Weather Service counted just 53 deaths in Texas. That discrepancy is likely because the National Weather Service counts only heat-related fatalities that occur on days hot enough to warrant an official heat advisory.
But deaths that are indirectly tied to extreme weather aren't counted as reliably. For example, many people die because of power outages during or after intense hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves."If there is a disaster and there is no electricity and people who need dialysis can no longerThere are no standardized criteria to confirm a link between a death that lags an extreme weather event and the disaster itself, and it isn’t always clear where to draw the line.
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