Author: JAMIE STENGLE and LEKAN OYEKANMI
SPRING, Texas (AP) — Janet Jarrett, 64, did her best to keep the 64-year-old warm as temperatures soared in the Houston-area home she shared with her sister after she lost power in Hurricane Beryl. Sister stay cool.
But on the fourth day of the blackout, she woke up to the gasping sounds of Pamela Jarrett, who was in a wheelchair and relying on a feeding tube. Paramedics were called but she was pronounced dead at hospital, with the medical examiner saying her death was caused by the heat.
“It's hard to know that she's gone now because this shouldn't have happened to her,” Janet Jarrett said.
Nearly two weeks after the Beryl attack, the death toll from Texas' heat-related power outages has reached at least 23.
In the days after the Category 1 storm made landfall on July 8, a combination of summer heat and residents' inability to turn on their air conditioners has led to increasingly dangerous conditions for some in the nation's fourth-largest city.
Beryl knocked out power to nearly 3 million homes and businesses at the height of the blackout, which lasted days or longer and hospitals reported a spike in heat-related illnesses.
After more than a week of widespread power outages, power was finally restored to most areas last week. Slow growth in the Houston area has put the region's electricity provider, CenterPoint Energy, under increasing scrutiny over whether it is adequately prepared.
While the full toll from the Texas storm may not be known for weeks or even years, knowing the numbers can help plan for the future, experts say.
What is known so far about the circumstances of the death?
The death toll included people killed by falling trees and drowning as their vehicles were swamped by floodwaters as the storm struck shortly after, bringing with it strong winds and flooding. Death tolls in the days after the storm included people who fell while cutting branches from damaged trees and heat-related deaths.
Half of the deaths from the storm in Harris County, where Houston is located, were heat-related, according to the Harris County Forensic Science Institute.
Jarrett, who has cared for her sister since she was injured in an attack six years ago, said her “stylish” sister has done everything from owning an antique store in Harlem to becoming an artist.
“She had a great personality,” Jarrett said, adding that her sister's health had been good before the power went out at Spring's home.
When will the full death toll be known?
The death toll is likely to continue to climb as power outages and cleanup efforts continue.
Officials are still trying to determine whether some of the deaths that have occurred should be considered storm-related. But even with those numbers, it may take more time to get a clear picture of the damage caused by the storm.
Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which uses death certificate data to determine storm-related fatalities, estimated a preliminary tally may not be available until the end of July.
Anton said prompts in the state's vital statistics system will show whether a death was related to the storm, and medical certifiers will be asked to send more information about how the death was related to the storm.
Experts say that while counting storm-related fatalities based on death certificates is useful, analyzing additional deaths that occurred during and after the storm could provide a more complete picture of the toll. To do this, the researchers compared the number of deaths during this period with the number of deaths expected under normal circumstances.
Dr. Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken School of Public Health at George Washington University, said excess death analysis helps tally deaths that may have been overlooked.
What do the different charging figures tell us?
Gregory Vellenius, director of the Center for Climate and Health at the Boston University School of Public Health, said there are benefits to both counting death certificates and counting excess deaths in the event of a storm.
Excess death analysis can provide a better estimate of total deaths, so in addition to assessing the impacts of climate change, it can be useful for public health and emergency management planning, he said.
But it “doesn't tell you who it is,” he said, and understanding the individual circumstances of storm deaths is important to help show what puts individuals at risk.
“If I just tell you 200 people died, it doesn't tell you what went wrong with those people, which tells us something that hopefully we can do a better job of preparing or helping people prepare in the future,” Wellenius said. .___
Stengel reported from Dallas. Sean Murphy contributed to this report in Oklahoma City.
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