Uncovering the Hidden Toll of Natural Disasters

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season was one of the most dangerous on record, with more than 150 people dying from direct causes in the U.S. and millions affected by severe flooding and high winds. New research from Rachel M. Young BA ’11, published in the top science journal Nature, shows that the long-term impact of tropical storms is far greater than the number of deaths released in the initial aftermath, marking a significant development in the field. This is Young’s latest publication on the social outcomes of environmental phenomena, which is her focus area as a Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley.

Rachel Young BA '11“We estimated the impact of 500 tropical cyclones on state-level mortality in the U.S. and found that they’re generating elevated rates of mortality for up to 15 years,” explains Young, referring to the article she coauthored with Stanford University’s Solomon Hsiang. “In that time horizon, the average tropical cyclone is indirectly causing between 7,000 and 11,000 excess deaths, which is 300 times greater than the direct death counts from the federal government.”

The findings of the article, which was published after Hurricane Helene made landfall in the American Southeast and before Hurricane Milton hit the coast of Florida less than two weeks later, have made waves across the field. The study is the first to look at the impact of storms in the long period that follows immediate devastation, generating media coverage in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, among other national outlets.

For Young, a Minnesota native who earned her bachelor’s degree in environmental studies at Lewis & Clark, the fight against climate change has been a lifelong passion. During the opening convocation at New Student Orientation, she was struck by former Professor of Economics Eban Goodstein’s address in which he encouraged the incoming class to think about the international consequences of global warming.

Her time at Lewis & Clark, which included running the Students Engaged in Eco-Defense (SEED) club, was formative in her development as a researcher. She was a member of the first-ever cohort of Associate Professor of Geological Science Elizabeth Safran’s (Un)Natural Disasters course, along with several classes with Professor of Environmental Studies James Proctor and Associate Professor of Economics Clifford Bekar, whom she credits with her introduction to the use of fossil fuels in global industrialization.

Estimated average excess mortality traceable to the tropical cyclone climate by state from 1950 to 2015.As an undergraduate, Young was involved with several youth climate organizations around the Pacific Northwest before turning her focus to solutions-oriented research. “I wanted to learn more and become a resource of knowledge, as opposed to a communicator of other people’s research,” she says.

After graduating, she spent three years working at an environmental think tank in Washington, D.C., before earning her master’s degree in public policy from Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and her PhD from Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. In 2022, Young worked for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where she helped create guidance for the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard and the climate resilience requirements for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act spending.

Now, in addition to her work at Berkeley, Young serves as a visiting postdoctoral scholar at Stanford’s Global Policy Lab and a postdoctoral researcher with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Policy Development and Research. She has another paper in the works about the ways in which storms drive people to move out of high-risk locations, with the preliminary finding that mobility is dependent on the severity of the storm.

“Prior research studying programs that help people relocate after a disaster have focused on buildings rather than the people themselves. My research is focusing on what happens to people and families. Where are they going? Are they better off?” Young asks. “Households are not fully recovering, in part because our attention turns away from disaster victims shortly after the storms make landfall. Our findings shed light on the fact that these communities need sustained support much longer than we previously thought.”

Environmental Studies