Heat-related deaths rise in Texas after millions were left without power for days or more

SPRING, Texas – As temperatures soared in the Houston-area home Janet Jarrett shared with her sister following the power outage during Hurricane Beryl, she did everything she could to keep her 64-year-old sister cool.

But on the fourth day without power, she heard Pamela Jarrett, who was in a wheelchair and fed through a feeding tube, gasping for air. Paramedics were called, but she was pronounced dead at the hospital. The coroner said her death was caused by the heat.

“It’s so hard to know that she has to go now because this shouldn’t have happened to her,” Janet Jarrett said.

Nearly two weeks after the storm, the death toll from the storm in Texas has risen to at least 23 due to prolonged power outages caused by the heat.

The combination of scorching summer heat and the fact that residents were unable to turn on their air conditioning in the days following the Category 1 storm’s landfall on July 8 created increasingly dangerous conditions for some residents of the U.S.’s fourth-largest city.

At the peak of the outages, which lasted several days or more, Beryl cut power to nearly three million homes and businesses, and hospitals reported a rise in heat-related illnesses.

Last week, power finally returned to most cities after more than a week of widespread outages. The slow pace in the Houston area has brought regional power provider CenterPoint Energy under increasing scrutiny over whether it was adequately prepared.

While it may take weeks or even years to determine the exact number of victims of the storm in Texas, experts say knowing these numbers will help with planning for the future.

What is known so far about the deaths?

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, which brought strong winds and flooding, deaths included people falling from trees and drowning when their vehicles were submerged in floodwaters. In the days following the storm, deaths included people falling while cutting down branches on damaged trees and heat-related deaths.

According to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, half of the deaths attributed to the storm in Harris County, where Houston is located, were due to the heat.

Jarrett, who has cared for her sister since she was injured in an attack six years ago, said her “sassy” sister has done everything from owning a vintage store in Harlem, New York, to working as an artist.

“She had a strong personality,” Jarrett said, adding that her sister was in good health before the power went out at their Spring home.

When will the full death toll be known?

With power outages still occurring and cleanup operations ongoing, the death toll is likely to continue to rise.

Authorities are still trying to determine whether some of the deaths that have already occurred are storm-related, but even when those numbers are available, it could be much longer before a clear picture of the storm’s victims is established.

Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Health, which uses death certificate data to determine storm-related deaths, estimates it may take until late July to have even a preliminary number.

There is a query in the state’s vital statistics system about whether the death was storm-related, and medical examiners are being asked to send additional information about the connection between the death and the storm, Anton said.

While experts say it’s helpful to count storm-related deaths using death certificates, an analysis of the excess deaths during and after the storm can provide a more complete picture of the casualties. To do this, researchers compare the number of people who died during that period with the number that would have been expected under normal circumstances.

Analyzing the excess deaths helps count deaths that may have been missed, said Dr. Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.

What do different toll numbers tell us?

Both the method of counting death certificates and calculating excess deaths have their own advantages during storms, says Gregory Wellenius, director of the Center for Climate and Health at Boston University’s School of Public Health.

The analysis of excess mortality allows a more accurate estimate of the total number of deaths and is therefore useful not only for assessing the impacts of climate change but also for public health and disaster management planning, he said.

But it “doesn’t say who it is,” he said, and understanding the individual circumstances of those killed in the storm is important to show what puts individuals at risk.

“If I just tell you that 200 people died, that doesn’t tell you the story of what went wrong with those people. That teaches us something about what we can hopefully do better to prepare or help people prepare in the future,” Wellenius said.___

Stengle reported from Dallas. Sean Murphy contributed to this report from Oklahoma City.