COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Last year 797 people lost their lives to a weather related incident nationally, while the 10-year average stands at 520.
Earlier this month, five servicemen from Fort Benning where injured when part of a tree fell on them in the mountains of north Georgia while two of those men succumbed to injuries.
To put this into perspective we decided to examine the data and see how common it is.
Last year alone there were 56 weather related wind deaths across the United States. Examining it further, 87% was a result of thunderstorm winds while the rest 13% was high wind related. The National Weather Service has only been keeping wind death records since 1995 so unfortunately we don’t have a 30-year average, but the 10-year average stands at 58.
The number one weather related killer in all categories is the heat during the oppressive summer months. According to the 10-year average, floods come in second with 98, third is wind, fourth is tornadoes, cold and winter are fifth and sixth.
Tornado and hurricane death averages are slowly declining with the advancement of radar technology along with social media presence with the help of social science studies of how people react.