Indirect Death Toll From California Wildfires Could Be Thousands

Clouds of smoke hang over Los Angeles earlier this
month from the wildfires in the region. Long term
effects of the wildfire disaster will kill far more
people than the actual fire. 

 At last check the death toll from this month of California wildfires stood at 28. Perhaps a couple dozen other people are missing. 

Hideous as that is, the indirect toll might end up being exponentially larger. 

Millions of people have been breathing toxic smoke and ash. 

Our health care system is in shambles, largely due to corporate greed, so the people who get sick from those toxins might not get the care they need. 

Mostly because the insurance companies will murder these people by denying coverage, deeming them too expensive for their bottom line. 

The fires had to take a terrible toll on mental health, too. Not everyone can recover from having their homes and possessions wiped out in a flash. 

THE SMOKE

As Yale Climate Connections reports, wildfire smoke is remarkably deadly. But it takes its victims quietly, gradually, in places far from the fires themselves

Per YCC:

"In a 2020 policy brief, Marshall Burke, an associate professor of Earth system science at Stanford University wrote: 'Our research suggests that many forepeople likely perish from smoke exposure during large fire events than perish directly in the fire, and many more people are made sick."

Wildfire smoke contains minuscule particles that can enter the lungs and blood stream and harm the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. 

Yale Climate Connections cites several studies. In 2018, the year Paradise, California burned down, wildfire smoke killed as many as 12,000 people according to one of those studies.

Another review said that in the 11 years from 2008 to 2018, wildfire smoke claimed the lives of nearly 5,000 Californians per year. 

Yet another study said between 46,000 and 90,000 people globally die annually from inhaling wildfire smoke and 13 percent of those deaths were attributed to climate change. 

It's probably even worse when a lot of houses and commercial buildings burn down. Think of all the plastics, chemicals, and other toxic chemicals going up in smoke. 

This will especially affect people who have pre-existing health problems. I'm thinking of, for example, news footage I saw of elderly people being evacuated and they're out there in that thick smoke and ash as they struggled to get into vehicles to get away. Or people trying to fight the fire and save their homes without wearing protective gear. 

THE UPHEAVAL

Yale Climate Connections makes the point that the stress of evacuating, losing your home, trying to recover, trying to navigate life into a "new normal" can also cause a lot of premature deaths. 

If you're mentally stressed, if affects your body, and can cause premature illnesses that seem unrelated to the original disaster. 

One study looked at deaths from hurricanes. 

Hurricanes are obviously not the same as wildfires, but they have some of the same effects - destroyed home, upheaval for families, an uncertain future.

The 2024 paper "found that the average landfalling U.S. hurricane between 1930 and 2015 caused 24 direct deaths.

However, they observed an increase in excess deaths - mortality beyond what would otherwise be expected in that period - lingered for 15 years, totaling 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths per storm. This burden is 300 to 480 times greater than the government estimated of direct death and was equivalent to 3.2 to 5.1 percent of all deaths across the contiguous United States."

I expect we might unfortunately see the same thing in southern California.  

North Carolina Shows New Crises, Problems Keep Emerging Months After Disaster

Another byproduct of a climate disaster. Even people whose
homes were undamaged are facing homelessness. Closed
businesses mean unemployment and an inability to pay
rent in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. 

We were all shocked by the drama of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina back in September.

The water seemed more extreme than we've ever seen, wiping out entire neighborhoods, hillsides, towns, businesses. You see how high the floods got, and wonder how that was possible.  

No fewer than 103 people died just in North Carolina from Helene. Just unimaginable for a hurricane to do so much harm so far inland.

The headlines have faded some since the initial disaster.  We see glimpses of normality emerging. Water and other services in Asheville are up and running.  Many if not most of the hundreds of destroyed roads and highways are humming with traffic again. 

But new hurt keeps raining down on Helene victims. It's hitting those whose houses were destroyed, and those whose places never had a drop of water inside their living rooms during the storm. 

Some people are learning they can never go home again, and others are being kicked out of their homes into an uncertain future.

EVICTIONS

As the Washington Post reports, evictions are soaring in western North Carolina as people who lost their livelihoods in the storm can't pay their rent, and landlords are unable or unwilling to grant extensions to tenants who are in a real bind. 

Increased homelessness looms just as winter sets in. 

As WaPo reports: 

"From the time Buncombe County courts reopened in mid-October, at least 225 new eviction cases have been filed in the county, according to an analysis of court records by the North Carolina Tenants Union, which advocates for renters' rights. Filing s accelerated this month as people missed November rent deadlines, though some of the tenants represented in these numbers may have started missing payments before Helene."

Rents were high in the region before Helene.  Some housing stock washed away in the flooding, leaving even fewer potential rental units available.

Asheville and surrounding areas are a big tourist hub. The region missed its big fall foliage tourism season as the mountainous area was still in crisis mode and barring visitors as leaves burst into color in October and early November. 

Tourist-dependent businesses that weren't destroyed in the flood had to shut down, leaving many workers out of a job. Which meant they couldn't pay rent. 

Visitors are starting to trickle back into western North Carolina and a lot of businesses have reopened. But it will be months or years before that industry can be back to full throttle. The eviction crisis won't go away soon. 

This type of thing is happening elsewhere with greater frequency, as climate change makes storms wetter, windier and more intense. It might not always be on the scale of what western North Carolina is going through, but it still hurts the victims.

Even here in Vermont, there's a crisis brought on by flooding over the past two years or so.

As Grist reported back in October, our flooding exacerbated Vermont's housing crisis. It put hundreds if not thousands of housing units out of commission, at least temporarily.

And people who wanted to move out of homes in flood danger zones were priced out of the market by sky high housing prices.

Back in North Carolina, there are mounting calls for an eviction moratorium. The moratorium drive is coming from a broad based group of advocates, business leaders and political leaders. The disaster has caused a spike in job losses, since many businesses were destroyed, damaged or crippled by Helene. 

A number of people are in even more dire straights than eviction proceedings. Some people are still living in unheated campers and even tents as winter weather presses in.  This isn't going to go away anytime soon.

Volunteer groups continue to try. Church groups, builders and of course Habitat for Humanity are building lots of tiny homes to offer to people who lost their homes in Helene. Sure, tiny homes are by definition small, but at least they're solid roofs over people's heads, with heat and running water. 

I guess these tiny houses are one positive climate change adaptation method, given that we're going to keep having disasters like this. 

LITERAL SHIFTING LANDSCAPES 

Hurricane Helene produced at least 2,000 landslides in western North Carolina. Many of those swept away homes, killing and injuring dozens of residents. 

To add insult to injury, people who had homes where landslides hit can't rebuild. It's too dangerous. What's left of the land is also worthless. 

As CBS News reports,  geologists are mapping the landslides and assessing where it's unsafe to rebuild. About 13 percent of the mountainous region in western North Carolina is prone to landslides and debris flows, and those places should not have homes or businesses built on them.  Geologist Jennifer Bauer has these risky areas designated as purple zones in her mapping. 

"There are many homes below the purple zones that could be impacted by future landslides, Bauer said. 

As storms get wetter and more intense with climate change, the risk of landslides grows with it.

Not just in North Carolina. Any mountainous or hilly area is prone to landslides and mudslides. It's not just a winter California thing.

The risk includes areas here in Vermont, where I live. The state saw no fewer than 82 landslides during the July, 2023 floods, eleven of which prompted immediate evacuations. One of the landslides swept aside vehicles on a road in Barre, though no serious injuries came out of that incident. 

The increase in extreme weather will keep surprising us with after effects of each disaster that will surprise us and complicate recovery from each event. 

I'm not sure what else to say about it, other than to bluntly say, get used to it. It will be a rough ride.