Los Angeles Times: Hurricanes can bring all sorts of trouble — winds, rains, floods. And early fatality data from Florence’s assault on the Carolinas suggest that being in your car, on the road, after the storm hits land has been especially deadly.
An analysis by the Los Angeles Times of 35 deaths officials have linked to the storm so far showed that more than half — 20 victims — died when they were apparently trapped in their cars by flooding or were involved in auto crashes during inclement weather.
In one of the storm’s most harrowing tragedies, a 1-year-old boy died in Union County in south-central North Carolina after his mother drove around barricades blocking a flooded road and water swept away her vehicle, officials said. The mother, Dazia Lee, survived, but she lost her grip on the boy, Kaiden Lee-Welch, as she tried to pull herself free, officials said.
Other Florence-related deaths included those caused by falling trees crashing into homes, carbon monoxide from a generator and electrocution.
The most deaths have come in North Carolina, the state hit hardest by the storm, where at least 27 people have died since Florence made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Friday.
At least six people died in South Carolina, and two in Virginia, including a man who was killed Monday when an apparent Florence-linked tornado hit a warehouse where he worked.
Of the victims whose ages and genders have been released, four-fifths have been male, and two-thirds have been older than 55, according to death reports collected from local officials and media reports. At least three victims were infants.
Four people have been killed by falling trees, reportedly including a 46-year-old woman while driving Tuesday in Rutherford County, N.C. Two of the dead were infants killed when trees crashed into their homes.
Three deaths have been linked to generator use, including a Longs, S.C., couple killed by carbon monoxide from a generator inside their home, and a Lenoir County, N.C., man electrocuted while setting up a generator.
Hurricanes tend to unleash a wide range of deadly mayhem, and it’s common for deaths to occur after people believe the greatest danger has passed. Those most vulnerable tend to be the elderly and residents of poor areas.
A 2016 study published in the journal of the American Meteorological Society, written by officials from the National Hurricane Center and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, found that the number of deaths after a hurricane is almost as large as the number of people killed by the force of the storms.
In the 16 storms they studied from 1985 to 2008, 43% of deaths came right before or after a storm had completely passed.
Heart attacks and cardiovascular failures are the leading cause of what are called “indirect” deaths — those not directly attributable to one of the physical forces of a tropical cyclone — as well as vehicle accidents, fires and electrocutions, according to the study…
Prophetic Link
“The restraining Spirit of God is even now being withdrawn from the world. Hurricanes, storms, tempests, fire and flood, disasters by sea and land, follow each other in quick succession. Science seeks to explain all these. The signs thickening around us, telling of the near approach of the Son of God, are attributed to any other than the true cause. Men cannot discern the sentinel angels restraining the four winds that they shall not blow until the servants of God are sealed; but when God shall bid His angels loose the winds, there will be such a scene of strife as no pen can picture.” Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 6, page 408.