Disasters like Ian pose extra risk for older residents

FORT MYERS, Fla. —  Older people with limited mobility and those with chronic health conditions requiring the use of electrically powered medical devices were especially vulnerable when Hurricane Ian slammed into southwest Florida, and experts warn that such risks are growing as disasters worsen with the effects of climate change.

Almost all of the dozens of people killed by Hurricane Ian in Lee County, the hardest-hit area, were age 50 or older, and many were in their 70s, 80s and 90s. That highlights the dangers for those least likely to be able to flee such disasters and those most likely to be affected in the aftermath.

Climate change makes hurricanes wetter and more powerful, but it also increases the frequency of heat waves like those that scorched the Pacific Northwest during the last two summers, killing scores of mostly elderly people. It has also intensified drought-fueled wildfires like the inferno that incinerated the California town of Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people — again, mostly older.

“It’s not terribly surprising that physically frail, socially isolated people are the most likely to die in these events. But it is politically significant,” said New York University sociology professor Eric Klinenberg. “If we know people are at risk, why aren’t we doing more to help them?”

Klinenberg, who wrote the book “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago” about the heat-related deaths of more than 700 mostly older and Black people in July 1995, called Ian a mere preview.

“We saw this happen in Chicago, in [Hurricane] Katrina, in [Superstorm] Sandy, and we are going to see more and more as the globe becomes increasingly hotter,” he said.

Florida in particular will feel the increased effect of climate-fueled disasters, as it sits in the path of many Atlantic storms and has a large share of retirees drawn by warm weather, a vast coastline and relatively cheap housing. About 29% of Lee County’s population is 65 and older.

One of the more dramatic stories of Ian demonstrates the risks.

Johnny Lauder’s 86-year-old mother, Karen Lauder, who uses a wheelchair, initially refused to evacuate. But as the water inside her home began to rise nearly above her head, she was unable to flee, and her son had to rescue her, in an ordeal he documented.

The extreme dangers some face when they lose power was especially clear in Lee County, where an 89-year-old man died after the electricity he needed for his oxygen went out and his backup generator failed.

Florida has attempted to address some of these issues by setting up shelters where people with health conditions that require electricity for oxygen, dialysis and devices like ventilators can preregister to stay.

AARP Florida Director Jeff Johnson praised the special shelters, saying the state’s county emergency management agencies have modernized and improved evacuation operations in the last two decades.

“There is room for improvement, but it would be wrong to say they aren’t doing anything,” he said.

Home-based networks that deliver care and services to older people, as well as neighborhood associations and faith communities, can also help by checking on those who are socially isolated, Johnson said.

Several hurricane survivors sat in wheelchairs Thursday outside one special shelter set up at an elementary school in Fort Myers.

Merrill Bauchert, 60, was staying there because Ian had destroyed his home, and he needs electricity for the CPAP machine he uses for severe sleep apnea.

Bauchert said dozens of residents from a senior living facility were staying at the shelter, many of them with mobility problems or dependent on electrical medical devices to stay alive.

Large oxygen tanks were used at first for people with breathing problems, he said, but those were later replaced with mechanical oxygen generators for individual use. Conditions have improved with restored water service, but the early days after the hurricane were tough, Bauchert said.

With many people too frail to go outside and no sewer service inside, people resorted to putting a plastic bag in a toilet and sitting down, sometimes with help.

“You were actually doing your business in a trash bag. Take the trash bag, tie it in a knot, throw it in the trash can and put another bag in for the next person,” he said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has recognized the disproportionate effect Ian had on the state’s older residents and the need for local groups to help their recovery.

“It hit in areas that have a lot of elderly residents, and I’ve met a lot of the folks,” DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday. “So you’re somebody who’s maybe 85 years old. You may not be able to do the same home repair that you used to be able to do when you were younger.”

Although the death toll from Ian was more than 100, and property damage was catastrophic, Hurricane Katrina caused far more deaths and destruction in August 2005.

Researchers have concluded that nearly half of those killed by Katrina in Louisiana were 75 or older. A 2006 Senate committee report noted a failure by all levels of government to effectively evacuate thousands of elderly, sick and disabled people from New Orleans as neighbors with cars fled the city.

Older people are also at risk from heat in the days and weeks after major storms.

After Hurricane Ida slammed Louisiana in 2021, of 19 heat-related deaths among New Orleans residents, only four were under the age of 60, according to information provided by the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office.

The aftereffects of Hurricane Irma in 2017 took an especially large toll.

The direct effects of the storm killed more than 90 people in the U.S. But within 90 days of the storm, 433 more residents at Florida nursing homes died than had during the same period in 2015, when there were no hurricanes, researchers at the University of South Florida and Brown University found.

The study was prompted by the heat-related deaths of 12 residents at a Broward County nursing home that occurred when the storm knocked out air conditioning and staff didn’t move them to another facility. An administrator and three nurses were later charged.

Klinenberg, the sociologist who wrote about the Chicago heat deaths, said the fault lies in how society cares for its elders not only during disasters but daily.

“We live in an aging society, and in a way, we are victims of our own success,” he said.

“Europe has the same problem. Also Japan and Korea. People are living decades longer because of medical science, but we don’t know how to care for them.”