Weather keeps killing, but experts say deaths preventable

As Hurricane Joaquin swirled in the Atlantic last fall, coastal U.S. residents heeded the warnings from the National Hurricane Center to batten down the hatches. They nailed plywood over their windows, tied down the patio furniture and hunkered down with their bottled water and flashlights.

The storm changed direction, heading out to sea, leaving the East Coast unscathed by hurricane-force winds, but a separate weather system brought drenching rain to the Southeast. Rivers rose over their banks. Highways and houses flooded. In the end, the wind speed never topped 38 mph, and yet 19 people died in South Carolina.

"We were warning about the South Carolina flood threat last year, yet people were talking about the hurricane (Joaquin) that was no threat to land," said Marshall Shepherd, a meteorologist at the University of Georgia.

Floods, rip currents, lightning and heat kill hundreds of people each year, but experts say almost every one of those deaths is preventable.

Heat is the nation's biggest killer, striking down about 130 people each year, according to data from the National Weather Service. Rip currents sweep about 100 people out to sea annually and floods take another 100 people, the data shows. Lightning strikes kill about 25 people a year. Data from the Centers for Disease Control, which uses broader criteria for calculating cause of death, says the numbers are even worse, attributing several hundred deaths to heat and cold.

Rebecca Noe of the National Center for Environmental Health at the CDC in Atlanta says almost all deaths and injuries from natural hazards can be avoided if people understand the risks from different weather events and prepare themselves.

"Whether it’s a big hurricane or a small storm, people need to take precautions and protect themselves and their families," Noe said.

Older adults, young children and poor people are most vulnerable to weather hazards, the CDC said.

While the drama and breathless TV coverage of tornadoes and hurricanes spur people to protect themselves and their property, Shepherd says many people ignore the very real dangers of flooding despite a national, decade-long "Turn around, don't drown" safety campaign.

More people die in flood waters than any other thunderstorm-related hazard, according to the National Weather Service. And more than half of the annual flood deaths occur in cars, said Katie Garrett, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

Weather Underground meteorologist Robert Henson says drivers have a false sense of safety in the protective bubble of their cars. Just a foot of rushing water can sweep away a small car, while two feet can haul away most vehicles.

"There's also the 'it can't happen to me' syndrome, which makes it easier for people to drive around roadblocks and into harm's way," Henson added.

"The power of rising water is difficult to grasp unless you've actually experienced it," he said.

The deadly combination of forgotten children in hot cars accounts for an average of 37 deaths a year, said meteorologist Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services. The temperature inside a car can soar to 123 degrees in under an hour on an 80-degree day.

Then 2015 tallied a new low — 24 — for the number of children dying in hot cars since records began in 1998. Null said it's too early to tell whether the marked decrease is a trend, but credits the drop to the well-publicized case of Ross Harris, who was charged with intentionally letting his toddler die in a hot car in Georgia in 2014. That case pushed the hazard to the front of people's minds, Null said.

While sharks get all the attention, rip currents are the deadlier beasts. Rip currents kill about 100 Americans each year and account for more than 80% of rescues performed by beach lifeguards, according to the U.S. Lifesaving Association. Sharks on average kill one person a year.

Rip currents, the strong but narrow currents flow away from the beach, reach speeds that sometimes exceed 6 mph, faster than an Olympic swimmer, according to the weather service. Many people, particularly vacationers who usually live away from the beach, may be unfamiliar with ocean hazards, according to the weather service.

Public awareness campaigns may have turned the tide on at least one weather hazard: lightning.

The weather service adopted its "When thunder roars, go indoors" public information campaign a decade ago. Since then, deaths have dropped nearly by half, said weather service meteorologist John Jensenius.

Jensenius also credits the widespread use of cell phones that allow people to better track thunderstorms on radar and get alerts so they can stay out of the path of dangerous storm cells.