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Born only a few weeks before the hurricane season of 1914 began, Christine B. Davis lived her whole life within 50 miles of the Gulf of Mexico.
Where a constant barrage of hurricanes and tropical storms batter the shores of Louisiana and Texas, where she spent 110 years.
She often recalls Hurricane Carla in 1961, a Category 4 hurricane that she survived many times. However, the 111th hurricane season in 2024 proved to be too much.
When Hurricane Beryl hit Matagorda County in June, Davis, the last of 13 siblings in her family, perished from exposure to the heat.
According to another granddaughter, Emma Odom, Davis was lodging with a grandchild in Cleveland, Texas.
Despite having a generator, Odom said that a week without power was “still a bit much for her body.” “She simply couldn’t handle it.”
According to a USA TODAY analysis of initial figures from state and municipal agencies, the great-great-great grandmother was among the at least 335 fatalities from the five storms that hit the U.S.
mainland this year. On Saturday, November 30, the Atlantic hurricane season comes to a close. According to Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center, the fatalities make 2024 the worst hurricane season since 2005.
At least three dozen people from Texas lost their lives during and after Hurricane Beryl, including Davis. For thousands of Texans, Beryl knocked out electricity with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph.
Hurricane Helene has killed at least 241 people in the United States, making it the worst hurricane to hit the continental United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which claimed over 1,400 lives.
Helene forced the year into one of the worst seasons since satellites first began monitoring hurricanes in the 1950s. According to Brennan, it’s also one of the worst for winds and freshwater floods.
According to Andrea Schumacher, a project scientist at the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research who studies weather hazards and societal choices.
It had been decades since that many U.S. fatalities were documented in a single season outside of 2005.
Despite significant advancements in warning and forecasting, Schumacher said that “a bit of a messaging quandary” still exists.
People “tend to think mostly about coastal areas when they think about hurricanes.” The wide-ranging effects of Helene demonstrated once again the extent of a single storm.
Brennan said that at one time, the hurricane center had hurricane and tropical storm watches and warnings in effect for western North Carolina and most of three whole states.
He said, “Hurricanes are not limited to coastal events.” “The great majority of the fatalities during Helene occurred hundreds of miles away from the point of landfall, according to the maps showing the locations of those incidents.”
On July 8, Beryl made landfall in Matagorda County, Texas, resulting in over 40 fatalities.
Debby: After making landfall in Taylor County, Florida, on August 5, it caused nine fatalities in South Carolina and Florida.
Francine – It made landfall southwest of Morgan City, Louisiana, on September 11; no fatalities were recorded.
Helene: Following the landfall in Taylor County, Florida on September 26, at least 241 people died in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Milton: Following landfall on October 9 close to Siesta Key, 44 people died around Florida.
A 17-year-old was killed by a rip current off Galveston, Texas, despite Alberto not making landfall in the United States, according to the hurricane center.
Many of the storm casualties were older than Davis. According to state authorities in North Carolina, the average age of the Helene victims was 58.
In Harris and Fort Bend counties in Texas, the average age of individuals who passed away following Beryl was 88.
According to Brennan, Helene was the most deadly tropical storm in terms of fatalities caused by wind since at least 1963.
With gusts of up to 100 mph in North Carolina’s high mountains, he said that “it was just the scale of the event, and the size of the hurricane wind field.”
The early figures indicate that hurricane winds are responsible for at least 60 to 65 fatalities. As Helene’s strong winds carried well inland.
After making landfall south of Tallahassee on the Florida coast on September 26, one-month-old twins, Khyzier and Khazmir Williams, perished along with their mother, Kobe Williams, when a tree toppled on their Georgia mobile home.
Through Georgia and into South Carolina, the storm’s strong winds destroyed roofs, downed trees, and damaged power lines, leaving several counties without electricity, impacting 90% to 100% of utility customers. According to Brennan, falling trees were the cause of the majority, if not all, of the wind-related deaths.
Cataclysmic flooding occurred in the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina due to a 200-mile stretch of the Appalachians that received anywhere between 10 and 30 inches of rain.
Rescue crews searched lakes, stream beds, and mudslide debris for weeks in an attempt to find the missing.
In Buncombe County, which is home to the county capital of Asheville, North Carolina, at least four fatalities were found in and near Echo Lake.
Brennan said he was becoming more anxious before the season began to warn people that even far inland and away from the highest winds, water dangers are the most deadly parts of a storm.
The proportion of hurricane victims who pass away due to freshwater flooding has increased to around 60% within the last ten years.
His thesis was emphasized by the incredible amount of rain that fell both before and during Helene. According to North Carolina state authorities, 23 individuals were killed in landslides and over 34 more drowned in the floodwaters.
According to Brennan, the number of fatalities linked to freshwater floods and precipitation during Helene is the most since Hurricane Agnes in 1972.
Three scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are among at least three different groups of researchers who have linked rising warmth from climate change to part of Helene’s excessive rainfall.
Scientists have said time and time again that hurricanes are given more energy by warming oceans, especially the Gulf of Mexico, and that storms can store more water due to atmospheric heating. This year, the Gulf of Mexico’s heat content hit all-time highs.
Schumacher said, “We’ve been talking about that for years and years, and how climate change is going to make it worse.”
According to her, the Appalachian Mountains served as an example of the “dreadful mix” that might result from the combination of the topography and heavy rains.
Because of their geographical vulnerability, numerous Appalachian counties are at very high danger of landslides and floods, according to Schumacher.
“I believe that’s the reason we witnessed so many deaths with Helene inland,” she said. “There is no last-minute protective action that can really make a big difference once the rain starts and the mountainside starts to slide.”
According to Brennan, new flood inundation maps are being released by federal authorities to identify regions vulnerable to floods caused by rainfall.
According to him, the maps were utilized to guide individuals out of danger in eastern Tennessee.
Tornadoes were blamed for at least ten fatalities, with at least six of the deaths being linked to Hurricane Milton.
According to Brennan, this storm season had the second-highest number of tornado fatalities after 2004.
At least six further fatalities were linked by Harris County, Texas authorities to exposure to ambient heat during the power outages, in addition to Davis’s death.
The sheriff’s office reports that at least 11 fatalities were discovered in Pinellas County residences that were inundated by storm surge during Helene’s impact in Florida, when the Gulf of Mexico swelled up to 7 feet higher. They were older than 70 on average.
But in Taylor County, where Debby and Helene hit the ground, Brennan said there were no recorded fatalities.
Preliminary estimates suggest that the sea level surge that hit areas of Taylor County along the coast with Helene may have exceeded 20 feet.
Reducing storm surge mortality has “really made a difference,” according to Brennan, thanks to decades of work and funding by state, federal, and local governments to map and understand the hazards, create evacuation strategies, and issue watches and warnings specific to storm surges.
According to Schumacher, meteorologists, emergency managers, social scientists, and other academics are still investigating strategies to lower the total number of storm-related fatalities, including the difficulties in determining when, where, and how to encourage people to evacuate.
It’s still difficult to figure out the intricate reasons why people decide to leave or not, she added. “There’s definitely a lot of research being done.”
According to her, people don’t base their choices only on weather warnings and predictions. “There’s there’s a plethora of other things they’re thinking about.”