Hurricanes like Helene are deadly when they strike and keep killing for years to come

Hurricanes in the United States end up hundreds of times deadlier than the government calculates, contributing to more American deaths than car accidents or all the nation's wars, a new study said.

The average storm hitting the U.S. contributes to the early deaths of 7,000 to 11,000 people over a 15-year period, which dwarfs the average of 24 immediate and direct deaths that the government counts in a hurricane's aftermath, the study in Wednesday's journal Nature concluded. Study authors said even with Hurricane Helene's growing triple digit direct death count, many more people will die partly because of that storm in future years.

“Watching what's happened here makes you think that this is going to be a decade of hardship on tap, not just what's happening over the next couple of weeks,” said Stanford University climate economist Solomon Hsiang, a study co-author and a former White House science and technology official.

“After each storm there is sort of this surge of additional mortality in a state that’s been impacted that has not been previously documented or associated with hurricanes in any way,” Hsiang said.

Hsiang and University of California Berkeley researcher Rachel Young looked at hurricane deaths in a different way than previous studies, opting for a more long-term public health and economics-oriented analysis of what's called excess mortality. They looked at states' death rates after 501 different storms hitting the United States between 1930 and 2015. And what they found is that after each storm there's a “bump” in death rates.

It's a statistical signature that they see over and over, Hsiang said. Similar analyses are done for heat waves and other health threats like pollution and disease, he said. They compare to pre-storm times and adjust for other factors that could be causing changes in death rates, he said. Complicating everything is that the same places keep getting hit by multiple storms so there are death bumps upon death bumps.

Just how storms contribute to people's deaths after the immediate impact is something that needs further study, Hsiang said. But he theorized it includes the health effects of stress, changes in the environment including toxins, people not being able to afford health care and other necessities because of storm costs, infrastructure damage and government changes in spending.

“When someone dies a few years after a hurricane hit them, the cause will be recorded as a heart attack, stroke or respiratory failure,” said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who wasn’t part of the study but has done similar studies on heat and cold deaths. “The doctor can’t possibly know that a hurricane contributed/triggered the illness. You can only see it in a statistical analysis like this.”

Initially Hsiang and Young figured the storm death bump would go away in a matter of months, but they were surprised when they examined hundreds of bumps and found they stretch out, slowly, over 15 years, Hsiang said.

It's “almost like a trickle of mortality, like each month we're talking about five to 10 individuals who are dying earlier than they would have otherwise," Hsiang said.

These people don't realize that 10 or 15 years later their health issues are associated with a storm in some way, but Hsiang said it shows up in the data: "They would not have died at those times had the storm not arrived. And so essentially, these storms are accelerating people’s deaths.”

The numbers proved so high that the researchers kept looking for mistakes or complicating factors they had missed. “It took years for us to really fully accept that this was happening," Hsiang said.

Storms are a factor in between 55,000 to 88,000 excess deaths a year, the study concluded. So for the 85 years studied, the team calculated between 3.6 and 5.2 million people died with storms being a factor. That's more than the 2 million car accident deaths over that period, the study said.

Before now the public looked at storms “as an inconvenience that is tragic for a small number of community members,” Hsiang said. But they really are “a major threat to public health,” he said.

Hsiang said he and Young saw a trend of increasing hurricane-connected deaths, predominantly because of population growth. Starting in 2000, there's been a big jump in the total volume of storms hitting large population, he said.

Three outside scientists said the study made sense.

“It seems like what they're doing is reasonable,” said University of Albany hurricane expert Kristen Corbosiero, who wasn't part of the research. “The numbers are really staggering.”

Texas A&M's Dessler said this is an important study because it brings home the deadly nature of climate change and extreme weather. He said he and his fellow climate scientists have been accurate in their warnings of the physics of what climate change would mean, but failed to emphasize enough how it would hurt people.

“Reading this, it’s clear that humanity is very vulnerable to weather shocks, even in an incredibly rich country like ours,” Dessler said in an email.

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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Search and Rescue members take a briefing in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

FILE - A search and rescue dog and handler look for victims in deep mud in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

FILE - People walk by a pile of debris left in the wake of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 1, 2024, in Marshall, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

FILE - Destruction to the Faraway Inn Cottages and Motel is visible in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

FILE - A fireman walks through mud as they search for victims of flash flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

FILE - Debris is visible in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Sept. 30, 2024, in Asheville, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the past four years, President Joe Biden has jetted off to survey damage and console victims after tornadoes, wildfires and tropical storms. It's not a role that Kamala Harris has played as vice president.

But on Wednesday, they will both fan out across the Southeast to grapple with the damage from Hurricane Helene, seeking to demonstrate commitment and competence in helping devastated communities after Donald Trump’s false claims about their administration’s response. Biden is heading to North Carolina and South Carolina, while Harris is going to Georgia.

Harris' stop will also serve as a political test in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. She's trying to step into the role for which Biden is best known — showing the empathy that Americans expect in times of tragedy — in the closing stretch of her campaign for president.

She last visited scenes of natural disasters as a California senator, including when she went to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017 and when she walked through charred wreckage in Paradise, California, after the Camp Fire in 2018.

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Harris’ campaign manager and former state director in her Senate office, said the vice president uses her experience consoling victims as a courtroom prosecutor to connect with people after tragedies.

She said the trip to Georgia was a chance for Harris "to continue to show her leadership and her ability to get things done, versus Donald Trump and JD Vance who want to dismantle the basic services and the role that the government should play.”

Trump, the Republican nominee, traveled to Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday with a Christian charity organization that brought trucks of fuel, food, water and other supplies.

After arriving, Trump accused Biden of “sleeping” and not responding to calls from Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga. However, Kemp had spoken with Biden the previous day, and the governor said the state was getting everything it needed.

Biden was infuriated by Trump’s claim, saying Trump was “lying, and the governor told him he was lying.”

The White House said Wednesday that as many as 1,000 active-duty soldiers, part of an Infantry Battalion Task Force based out of Fort Liberty, North Carolina, will begin work helping to deliver food, fuel and supplies in the region.

“Even before Hurricane Helene hit, I directed my team to do everything possible to prepare to support communities in the storm’s path,” Biden said in a statement. “I mobilized the entire Federal government to bring every possible resource to the fight to save lives and help those in urgent need.”

The death toll approached 160 people, and power and cellular service remains unavailable in some places.

“We have to jumpstart this recovery process," Biden said Tuesday. “People are scared to death. This is urgent.”

The president is flying into to Greenville, South Carolina, and will view storm fallout from the air as roads and highways are still impassable in many areas, before heading to Raleigh, North Carolina, for a briefing.

Trump claimed without evidence that Democratic leaders were withholding help from Republican areas, an accusation that better describes his own approach to disaster relief. He recently threatened that he would withhold wildfire assistance from California because of disagreements with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

When Trump was president, Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people. His administration waited until the fall of 2020, just weeks before the presidential election, to release $13 billion in assistance for Puerto Rico’s recovery. A federal government watchdog also found that Trump administration officials hampered an investigation into delays in the aid delivery.

And during a visit there, he was criticized for tossing paper towel rolls to survivors at a relief center. The gesture seemed to go over well in the room but was widely panned as insensitive to those who were suffering. He also questioned whether the death toll was accurate, claiming it rose “like magic.”

Harris visited Puerto Rico after Maria as part of a bipartisan delegation.

“When disaster hits anywhere in America, our government has a basic responsibility to commit the resources necessary to save lives, accurately assess damage, and rebuild communities," she wrote on Twitter in 2018. "We now know that after Hurricane Maria, our government failed Puerto Rico at every level.”

Last month, on the seventh anniversary of Maria, Harris recalled speaking with Puerto Ricans who had lost businesses and homes.

“They didn’t need paper towels thrown at them — they needed real help and partnership,” she said.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to members of the media, Tuesday Oct. 1, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

President Joe Biden listens during a briefing on the government's response to Hurricane Helene in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to members of the media, Tuesday Oct. 1, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

President Joe Biden speaks during a briefing on the government's response to Hurricane Helene in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, as Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, left, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, right, look on. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)