The death toll from Hurricane Katrina is, thankfully, proving to be far, far smaller than the dire, panic-induced estimates first made by some. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin famously predicted “thousands” of dead in New Orleans alone, then upped the ante to "It wouldn't be unreasonable to have 10,000 [dead]." This figure was dutifully picked up by the news media and used as a cudgel in various political and sensationalist screeds. The Louisiana death toll now stands at 474. Mississippi has 218 dead thus far.
That’s far too many, but nowhere near the apocalyptic visions once being proffered. The smaller numbers are, apparently, no problem for those that want to report on death, however.
Consider this Associated Press Story out of Houston, widely disseminated after being linked on The Drudge Report, and reporting that 53 evacuees have died in Texas.
These deaths were scattered over several cities but were all dutifully tallied with the clear implication that the Hurricane and its ensuing evacuation continue to claim lives a full two weeks after the floods. Sadly, the deaths included many elderly, one of whom dropped dead in the parking lot of the Astrodome.
There’s just one problem with reporting these deaths as unusual: most aren’t. As noted in the same story, there are 240,000 evacuees in Texas right now. Given the United States’ average death rate of 8.25 per thousand per year, that means we could expect that (in the two weeks time since the flood) approximately 76 Texas evacuees should have died from normal causes. After all, people die everyday, everywhere.
How, then, is 53 dead a continuing news story? Even if the statewide search of medical examiners missed 23 dead, the death rate is not above average.
Apparently, bad news is where you find it. Or maybe, this is what happens when we allow people to receive journalism degrees without taking a basic statistics course.
What a headline: Evacuees still not Immortal –who to blame?
