Heat-related Texas deaths climb after Beryl left millions without power for days or longer
https://apnews.com/article/houston-power-outages-death-toll-53a403fec3ffdf34daeb8d5e179953baBY JAMIE STENGLE AND LEKAN OYEKANMI
Updated 1:32 AM EDT, July 21, 2024
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The combination of searing summer heat and residents unable to power up air conditioning in the days after the Category 1 storm made landfall on July 8 resulted in increasingly dangerous conditions for some in America’s fourth-largest city.
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When will a complete death toll be known?
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Officials are still working to determine if some deaths that have already occurred should be considered storm related. But even when those numbers come in, getting a clear picture of the storm’s toll could take much more time.
Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which uses death certificate data to identify storm-related deaths, estimated that it may not be until the end of July before they have even a preliminary count.
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Experts say that while a count of storm-related fatalities compiled from death certificates is useful, an analysis of excess deaths that occurred during and after the storm can give a more complete picture of the toll. For that, researchers compare the number of people who died in that period to how many would have been expected to die under normal conditions.
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We did ok during Beryl we were without power about 24 hours, and actually a little longer without internet! We live in the suburbs south of Houston, have reliable vehicles, found places to eat & get back on our phones (they were charged in our car and via power banks). Suburban folks can deal to some degree, even though it's painful to throw away all the food you lose. Some even have whole house generators, or portables to run things like the refrigerator and not lose as much. But there are so many people who are also not in that position. If you have any sort of medical condition & could get to an ER, that is probably where you would go to seek a/c, oxygen, and whatever else you need. If you have the means to get there. I'm sure we will never get a full death count because there are folks who are somewhat off the grid and/or no one to look for them.
Re Boliver -- There was a big thing with Hurricane Ike years ago - I remember it vividly because Texas Equ-search had some fliers up looking for people who seemed to be missing from Boliver Island. Cat 2 Hurricane, strong storm surge, and I noticed when I was checking the Galveston press that after a point nobody could even get to Galveston (they stopped traffic in/out of the Island). Bolivar is beyond that, it's a peninsula that folks would get to via ferry from Galveston. It jutts out into the gulf, so the surge would have cut right over it. It's unlikely that folks on the peninsula survived that surge. This was the quote in Wiki about deaths: "As of December 27, 2008, 37 people are known to have died in Texas due to Ike while hundreds are still missing." 