Heatwaves deadlier than storms, says 'death map' of US

Yahoo News 17 Dec 08;

PARIS (AFP) – Hurricanes and earthquakes win more headlines but heatwaves claim most lives, according to a survey of mortality from natural threats in the United States, published on Wednesday.

The "death map" says hazard mortality is highest in the US South, where a variety of threats are to blame, followed by the northern Great Plains, where heat and drought are the greatest natural risks, then the Rocky Mountains, where the killers are chiefly winter weather and flooding.
The safest place, in terms of protection against the forces of nature, are parts of the Midwest or cities in the Northeast.

The study is published by an open-access British review, the International Journal of Health Geographics.

Reseachers Susan Cutter and Kevin Borden of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina used geographical and epidemiological data to build a picture of mortality at county level from 11 causes.

Heat and drought accounted for 19.6 percent of total deaths.

This was followed by severe summer weather, where hail, lightning and thunderstorms, accounted for 18.8 percent of deaths; and by severe winter weather, where snow and ice were to blame for 18.1 percent of fatalities.

Earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes were responsible for less than five percent of all deaths from natural hazards combined.

"Over time, highly destructive, highly publicised, often catastrophic singular events such as hurricanes and earthquakes are responsible for relatively few deaths when compare to the more frequent, less catastrophic events," the paper notes.

As for sub-regions, "significant clusters" of high mortality occurred in the lower Mississippi Valley, upper Great Plains and Mountain West, with additional areas in west Texas and the Florida panhandle.

Conversely, big clusters of low mortality are in the Midwest and urbanised Northeast.

The authors say their work seeks to guide emergency planners over how to allocate resources to areas and people most at risk.

The data derives from a database of 3,070 county-sized areas from 1970-2004, from which Hawaii and Alaska was excluded. The period under study did not include 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina, which claimed more than 1,500 lives.

"Death map" shows heat a big hazard to Americans
Maggie Fox, Yahoo News 17 Dec 08;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Heat is more likely to kill an American than an earthquake, and thunderstorms kill more than hurricanes do, according to a "death map" published on Tuesday.

Researchers who compiled the county-by-county look at what natural disasters kill Americans said they hope their study will help emergency preparedness officials plan better.

Heat and drought caused 19.6 percent of total deaths from natural hazards, with summer thunderstorms causing 18.8 percent and winter weather causing 18.1 percent, the team at the University of South Carolina found.

Earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes combined were responsible for fewer than 5 percent of all hazard deaths.

Writing in BioMed Central's International Journal of Health Geographics, they said they hoped to dispel some myths about what the biggest threats to life and limb are.

"According to our results, the answer is heat," Susan Cutter and Kevin Borden of the University of South Carolina wrote in their report, which gathered data from 1970 to 2004.

"I think what most people would think, if you say what is the major cause of death and destruction, they would say hurricanes and earthquakes and flooding," Cutter said in a telephone interview. "They wouldn't say heat."

"What is noteworthy here is that over time, highly destructive, highly publicized, often-catastrophic singular events such as hurricanes and earthquakes are responsible for relatively few deaths when compared to the more frequent, less catastrophic such as heat waves and severe weather," they wrote.

The most dangerous places to live are much of the South, because of the heat risk, the hurricane coasts and the Great Plains states with their severe weather, Cutter said.

The south central United States is also a dangerous area, with floods and tornadoes.

California is relatively safe, they found.

"It illustrates the impact of better building codes in seismically prone areas because the fatalities in earthquakes have gone down from 1900 because things don't collapse on people any more," Cutter said.

"It shows that simple improvements in building codes in high-wind environments like hurricane coasts, and the effectiveness of evacuation in advance of hurricanes, has reduced the mortality from hurricanes and tropical storms," she added.

"So there are some things we are pretty good at in getting people out of harm's way and reducing fatalities."

Cutter said there is no national database on such deaths and this was a first try at getting one together.

(Editing by Will Dunham)