23.14 Lessons from real cases

Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria (2017)

• Power took 11 months to return to the last sector. Households went an average of 84 days without power and 68 without water.

• Deaths accumulated in the following months, not on the day of the hurricane: the interruption of medical care and medicines was a central cause.
• Lesson: plan for long-term health (medicines, medical equipment, heat), not just for the storm.

Winter Storm Uri (2021)

• 246 deaths in the hardest-hit state, most from hypothermia; 19 from carbon monoxide from heating or generating power indoors.
• The grid came within minutes of a collapse that could have lasted weeks. In some cities, water pumping stations lost power and were put under boil-water advisories.
• Lesson: power and water fail together, and mistakes with generators and stoves kill as many people as the weather.

New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina (2005)

• In Louisiana, about half of the victims were 75 or older (study by Brunkard et al., 2008).
• Many people could not leave: they had no car, money, or help to move.
• Lesson: vulnerable people need a plan of their own and help from their neighbors, and the decision to leave must be made in time.

Hurricane Beryl (2024)

• More than 2.7 million customers without power in the middle of July; heat deaths in homes without air conditioning.
• Lesson: in warm areas, a summer blackout is a heat emergency.