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An analysis of coastal and inland fatalities in landfalling US hurricanes

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  • Jeffrey Czajkowski
  • Kevin Simmons
  • Daniel Sutter

Abstract

Improvements in hurricane forecasts allowing for more timely evacuations from storm-surge zones are credited with reducing lethality of US landfalling hurricanes. The deadly reach of a hurricane, however, is not limited to storm-surge zones. About 80% of direct US hurricane fatalities since 1970 occurred outside of landfall counties, with most of these fatalities caused by inland flooding. We construct a geographic information system database combining the location and cause of fatalities, estimated wind speeds, and rainfall amounts for the entire track of the storm for landfalling US hurricanes between 1970 and 2007. We analyze the determinants of total fatalities and deaths due to freshwater drowning and wind. Inclusion of inland fatalities results in no downward trend in lethality over the period, in contrast to prior research. Local storm conditions significantly affect lethality, as one-inch and one-knot increases in rainfall and wind increase total fatalities by 28 and 4%. Rainfall significantly increases freshwater-drowning deaths and is insignificant for wind deaths, while the opposite relation holds for wind speed. While coastal counties do not exhibit a significantly higher amount of lethality risk versus inland counties for total or wind-driven fatalities, freshwater-drowning fatalities occur most frequently in inland counties along the center of the storm path and its outer county tiers as we have defined them. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Suggested Citation

  • Jeffrey Czajkowski & Kevin Simmons & Daniel Sutter, 2011. "An analysis of coastal and inland fatalities in landfalling US hurricanes," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 59(3), pages 1513-1531, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:59:y:2011:i:3:p:1513-1531
    DOI: 10.1007/s11069-011-9849-x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gregory Price, 2008. "Hurricane Katrina: Was There a Political Economy of Death?," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 163-180, December.
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    5. Nicole Cornell Sadowski & Daniel Sutter, 2005. "Hurricane Fatalities and Hurricane Damages: Are Safer Hurricanes More Damaging?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(2), pages 422-432, October.
    6. Matthew E. Kahn, 2005. "The Death Toll from Natural Disasters: The Role of Income, Geography, and Institutions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 271-284, May.
    7. Kellenberg, Derek K. & Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq, 2008. "Does rising income increase or decrease damage risk from natural disasters?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 788-802, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ashley C. Freeman & Walker S. Ashley, 2017. "Changes in the US hurricane disaster landscape: the relationship between risk and exposure," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 88(2), pages 659-682, September.
    2. Molina, Renato & Rudik, Ivan, 2022. "The Social Value of Predicting Hurricanes," SocArXiv sqtjr, Center for Open Science.
    3. Hong Wang & Min Xu & Anselem Onyejuruwa & Yanjun Wang & Shanshan Wen & Andrew E. Gao & Yubin Li, 2019. "Tropical cyclone damages in Mainland China over 2005–2016: losses analysis and implications," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 21(6), pages 3077-3092, December.
    4. Lazzaroni, Sara & van Bergeijk, Peter A.G., 2014. "Natural disasters' impact, factors of resilience and development: A meta-analysis of the macroeconomic literature," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 333-346.
    5. Dino Collalti & Eric Strobl, 2022. "Economic damages due to extreme precipitation during tropical storms: evidence from Jamaica," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 110(3), pages 2059-2086, February.
    6. Sutter Daniel & Ewing Bradley T., 2016. "State of Knowledge of Economic Value of Current and Improved Hurricane Forecasts," Journal of Business Valuation and Economic Loss Analysis, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 45-64, June.
    7. Renato Molina & Ivan Rudik, 2022. "The Social Value of Predicting Hurricanes," CESifo Working Paper Series 10049, CESifo.
    8. Xuejun Jiang & Yunxian Li & Aijun Yang & Ruowei Zhou, 2020. "Bayesian semiparametric quantile regression modeling for estimating earthquake fatality risk," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(5), pages 2085-2103, May.
    9. Peter A. G. van Bergeijk & Sara Lazzaroni, 2015. "Macroeconomics of Natural Disasters: Strengths and Weaknesses of Meta‐Analysis Versus Review of Literature," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(6), pages 1050-1072, June.
    10. Stephan Schneider & Sven Kunze, 2021. "Disastrous Discretion: Ambiguous Decision Situations Foster Political Favoritism," KOF Working papers 21-491, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    11. Christopher Burgess & Michael Taylor & Tannecia Stephenson & Arpita Mandal & Leiska Powell, 2015. "A macro-scale flood risk model for Jamaica with impact of climate variability," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 78(1), pages 231-256, August.
    12. Kun Yang & Rachel A. Davidson & Humberto Vergara & Randall L. Kolar & Kendra M. Dresback & Brian A. Colle & Brian Blanton & Tricia Wachtendorf & Jennifer Trivedi & Linda K. Nozick, 2019. "Incorporating inland flooding into hurricane evacuation decision support modeling," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 96(2), pages 857-878, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Hurricanes; Fatalities; Freshwater drowning; Rainfall; Wind field; Q54;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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