Heat-related deaths in Texas rise after Beryl leaves millions without power for days or more – KXAN Austin

Janet Jarrett holds up a photo of her sister, Pamela Jarrett, that she keeps on her phone in the home they shared Friday, July 19, 2024, in Spring, Texas. Pamela Jarrett died after suffering from heat-related stress from power outages caused by Hurricane Beryl. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)

SPRING, Texas (AP) — As temperatures rose in the Houston-area home Janet Jarrett shared with her sister after Hurricane Beryl knocked out power, she did everything she could to keep her 64-year-old brother cool.

But on their fourth day without power, she woke to hear Pamela Jarrett, who was confined to a wheelchair and reliant on a feeding tube, gasping for breath. Paramedics were called, but she was pronounced dead at the hospital, with the coroner saying her death was caused by the heat.

“It’s so hard knowing she’s gone now because this shouldn’t have happened to her,” said Janet Jarrett.

Nearly two weeks after Beryl struck, the number of heat-related deaths during Texas’ extended power outages has risen to at least 23.

The combination of scorching summer heat and residents unable to turn on air conditioning in the days after the Category 1 storm made landfall on July 8 created increasingly dangerous conditions for some people in America’s fourth-largest city.

At the height of the blackout, which lasted for days or longer, Beryl knocked out power to nearly 3 million homes and businesses, and hospitals reported a spike in heat-related illnesses.

Power was finally restored to most last week after more than a week of widespread outages. The slow pace in the Houston area has drawn mounting criticism from the region’s electricity provider, CenterPoint Energy, over whether it was adequately prepared.

While it could be weeks or even years before the full human toll from the storm in Texas is known, experts say understanding those numbers will help us plan for the future.

What is known so far about the deaths?

Shortly after the storm hit, with its high winds and flooding, deaths included people killed by falling trees and people drowning when their vehicles were flooded. In the days after the storm passed, deaths included people who fell while cutting branches from damaged trees and heat-related deaths.

Half of the storm-related deaths in Harris County, where Houston is located, were heat-related, according to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.

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

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

When will the full death toll be known?

As power outages and clean-up efforts continue, the death toll is likely to rise.

Officials are still working to determine whether some of the deaths that have already occurred should be considered storm-related. But even as those numbers come in, it could take much longer to get a clear picture of the storm’s toll.

Lara Anton, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which uses death certificate data to identify storm-related deaths, estimates it could be late July before even a preliminary count is known.

According to Anton, there is a notification in the civil registry system that must indicate whether the death is related to the storm. Medical certifying bodies are also asked to send additional information about how the death is related to the storm.

Experts say that while a count of storm-related deaths, compiled from death certificates, is useful, an analysis of excess deaths that occurred during and after the storm can provide a more complete picture of the toll. To do this, researchers compare the number of people who died during that time period with the number of people who would have died under normal circumstances.

The excess death analysis helps count deaths that may have been overlooked, 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 counting death certificates and calculating excess deaths have their advantages when it comes to storms, said Gregory Wellenius, director of the Center for Climate and Health at Boston University School of Public Health.

The excess mortality rate analysis provides a better estimate of the total number of deaths and is therefore useful for public health and emergency planning, as well as for assessing the impact of climate change, he said.

But it doesn’t tell you who, he said, and understanding the individual circumstances of storm deaths is important to showing what puts individual people at risk.

“If I tell you 200 people died, that doesn’t tell you the story of what went wrong for those people, which tells 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.