North Carolina

The days after are more dangerous than the landfall.

The wind stops, the power stays off, and the generators come out. After Hurricane Ida, Louisiana hospitalised dozens for carbon monoxide poisoning inside the first 48 hours. Cash matters here too — when the grid is down the card readers are down with it, and the store that is open cannot take your money.

The storm is not the emergency. The outage is.

What kills people afterwards is the generator. Portable generators cause roughly 100 unintentional carbon monoxide deaths a year in the United States, and they cluster in the days after a storm when the power is out. Carbon monoxide is odourless, and by the time you are confused enough to notice, you are too confused to act. Outside, far from the house, never in a garage with the door open.

Underestimated because of the name.

The rain and the outage do the damage, not the wind — which means the same generator and floodwater failures that follow a hurricane follow this too.

The illness is not the whole emergency.

In June 2020, 41% of US adults had avoided medical care because of COVID concerns — 12% skipped urgent or emergency care and 31% skipped routine care. The households that struggled were the ones with a prescription, a chronic condition or a caregiving duty and no plan for any of them.