Why Are We Not Keeping Track Of The Dead From Hurricane Harvey?
Why Are We Not Keeping Track Of The Dead From Hurricane Harvey?
It is not surprising that as Hurricane Harvey has finally moved off the Atlantic coast and is over, and the flood waters recede in the various places that it caused damage, it is unsurprising that reporting has moved onto the inside pages of papers and even seems on the verge of disappearing. But somehow a piece of information that I would think is important, and that I have seen reported more substantially in past disasters, is the number who died as a result of the hurricane. If one googles “dead from Hurricane Harvey,” one gets as the top hits reports from many days ago in which one learns that the number who died is in single digits.
As it is, by digging hard I have found that the number is much higher, but seems unclear, but is only barely being mentioned deep in stories on the event. After digging hard, I found scattered reports within the last 12 hours. The number dead are reported to be either 38, 40, 43, 45, 46, or 50. Those searching through badly flooded buildings, now free from the water, are gradually discovering those who could not escape and drowned. But somehow these numbers seem to be of little interest. I remember previous disasters where a few died, and that number would be the big headline, and people would keep track. But somehow, for reasons I do not understand, the number dead from this event somehow seems to be of little interest to the media, and perhaps even the public. Is this really true, and if so, why?
Somehow I doubt that it is because over 1,200 people have died this season in South Asia from floods as that piece of information has received even less media attention.
Barkley Rosser
The media cycle has moved on to the next story (Irma, North Korea, DACA, there’s a long list of stories that are all deserving of headlines).
Part of the coverage is based on what the government is reporting though. Stories that are accessible will receive more coverage than an equally “important” subject that has less accessible data.
This is going to be especially true of non-local media. Houston Chronicle or local TV station sites will have more long term coverage.
Texas Department of Emergency Management isn’t reporting deaths in their situation reports. They are reporting property damage, so you will probably see statistics on the number of destroyed homes etc in the articles that are out there.
Similarly, FEMA is not reporting deaths, their website is busily reporting statistics on the number of rescues, meals handed out, and how many government personnel are on site.
To me the story isn’t the deaths, it’s the amount of spending the wider public will be shouldering to rebuild a city that was repeatedly warned about what they were doing and rejected plans to remediate and mitigate their impacts, despite consecutive years of massive flooding because they couldn’t stomach the price tag. But that story would be regarded as cruel right now, and the information that you really need to report on that won’t be available for years.
What I find weird about this, and what pushed me to post this, is that usually in disaster situations the death count is the top story. But not on this one where somehow property is more important than people.
BTW, the latest count I have heard is now up to 60. It is not the 1200 in South Asia from flooding, but it is a lot more than those killed in other events where people went just plain nuts over the numbers killed, although most of those involved a human source. But, indeed, there are many saying that this storm would not have caused so much damage either in lives or property if Houston had more civic planning to deal with exactly this sort of crisis.
i read 60 this mornng…
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-weather/hurricaneharvey/article/Harvey-Aftermath-Houston-police-officer-dies-19-12159139.php
but: “Local officials expect the grim discoveries of additional bodies once the floodwaters retreat and the streams, rivers and bayous go back into their banks.
so should someone be keeping a runnng count, adding to it every time another body is discovered?
Note that you need to consult local papers to keep track of this after it has fallen off the national news. Time reports 70, but it should be recalled that this over the area between Bastrop and Beaumont. (over 200 miles east west. While the national news did not cover it there was serious flooding between Houston and San Antonio on the first day or 2. This is what caused the Brazos river flooding as well as the other rivers. Or check the Houston TV stations or Houston Chronicle web sites. This does show that the weighting algorithms on search engines are not always most useful. They need to add a by date ordering, you need to go to the advanced search page on google to find the ability to set a cut off date:https://www.google.com/advanced_search