The phrase “death toll rises” is ubiquitous in the headlines of weather disasters like the one that unfolded this month in the Texas Hill Country.

But accounting for the human cost of flash floods, hurricanes, fires, heat waves and extreme weather isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. 

“Accurately reporting death tolls from natural disasters is something that journalists and the media have long struggled with, and I think there are a number of reasons for that,” meteorologist and weather historian Sean Potter said.

Among the difficulties are disruptions in communications, different ways deaths are tracked and recorded and lack of coordination between agencies.

“The most important thing for journalists is to keep asking questions about deaths and injuries, again and again and again, and ask for details,” said Peter Prengaman, Associated Press global climate and environmental news director. “The questions need to be part of each day’s reporting, and sometimes even asked many times during a day, as things change quickly as a disaster unfolds.”

The way deaths are counted makes it more difficult to keep up

In a 2023 investigation that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, reporters at The Villages (Florida) Daily Sun found that the number of deaths in Florida related to Hurricane Ian was at least 15% higher than the official total, according to Daily Sun executive editor Bonita Miyagi. 

Part of the reason for discrepancies like that is the lack of universal standards for government agencies tracking deaths in weather disasters.

“They all report differently and there was a good deal of overlap” in Ian, Miyagi said. “For instance, a victim would be found in one county and transported to another county and sometimes neither one of them would generate a report, or sometimes both of them would generate a report.”

Prengaman said reporters’ daily questions should be directed at multiple different people, from those on the ground to local coroners and state officials. 

“In Texas, if we hear from authorities that xx number of people who were in one camp died, and then we hear somebody else saying something different, we know that there is a discrepancy,” Prengaman said. “We report further to find out what is correct.”

That task can become increasingly difficult as the toll climbs.

“When the numbers are too high to easily name every individual, journalists need to ask the many officials who are maintaining lists to describe how they have assembled that list and if they have compared notes with other officials,” said Kelly McBride, Poynter senior vice president and chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership. 

Miyagi is “very very leery and skeptical” of officials in the field providing death tolls. 

“Even people with badges who seem like they’ve been in it, they’ve seen it, they’re mentally bracing themselves for the worst and it’s very likely they’re going to be telling you their fears versus what’s going to be likely,” she said.

That’s where context comes in. 

“Probably your two best words are those words ‘at least’ or ‘an estimated’ and then just attribute everything,” Miyagi said.

Getting an accurate accounting of all the deaths throughout Florida from Hurricane Ian in 2022 proved challenging for journalists. Here, people stand on a destroyed bridge to Pine Island after the hurricane. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Differentiating between indirect and direct deaths

Deaths from weather disasters are often divided into two categories: “direct” or “indirect.” Jennifer Hubbard, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service Tampa Bay Area office, used a hurricane as an example to explain the difference.

“Direct deaths are fatalities that are directly caused from the impacts of the storm itself — wind, surge, flooding from rainfall — so for example, someone that drowns in the storm surge,” Hubbard said. “An indirect fatality is one that is not directly related to the storm, but would otherwise have not happened if not for the storm. An example would be someone that dies due to carbon monoxide poisoning from improper generator use, and they are using the generator due to the power being out in the wake of the storm.”

Indirect deaths can raise questions about how far the term “weather-related” should be stretched. But they also help shed light on factors that exacerbate the danger of weather, like health issues or not having adequate shelter in times of extreme heat or cold.

Indirect deaths are still adding to the toll in Western North Carolina, 10 months after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida and left a path of destruction through the Southeast.

“There was a death in June of a truck driver who was working on the Helene recovery effort, whose brakes went out and he died so they consider him a Helene death,” said Jacob Biba, who writes about Helene recovery for the Asheville (North Carolina) Citizen-Times.

Why counting death tolls is important

Understanding the human cost of a disaster — and how it’s reported — can help shape public policy and perception.

“In most weather disasters people die from a variety of specific things and bringing detail to the variety is really important for a number of reasons,” McBride said. “One is it helps everybody else understand how to keep themselves safe.”

Causes of deaths tied to Ian in Florida included drowning, vehicle crashes, heart attacks, lack of electricity to power medical devices, an inability to be reached by emergency services and suicide. 

McBride said details like those bring clarity to what happened. That’s especially important to help prepare people, communities and journalists for the kinds of extreme weather events that scientists say are becoming more likely as greenhouse gas emissions continue to warm the earth’s atmosphere. 

The real work comes after the disaster

In the longer term, McBride said, newsrooms have a responsibility to follow up on disasters in their communities. 

“If it’s lots and lots of people then you really need to be looking at death records and what the coroner and the medical examiner said was the cause of death, and maybe what the circumstances were that led to the discovery of the body,” she said.

That’s what The Villages Daily Sun did.

“We started our reporting based on the same death toll spreadsheet that was sent to all media from the state medical examiner,” Miyagi said.

Reporters at the paper spent months on work that included cross-checking those reports with public sources like 911 calls, probate records, property records and voter registration. They went to areas hardest hit by the storm and listened to people’s stories.

Miyagi admits that one of her biggest pieces of advice for journalists isn’t always easy in today’s news environment:

“You have to commit before you walk out the door that getting it right is more important than getting it first,” she said. “Don’t risk your credibility for the clicks.”