[Table of Contents]

4. DEATHS, INJURIES, AND PROPERTY DAMAGES IN THE 1990s

A. OVERVIEW

The distributions of Rural and Urban lightning casualties from 1991 to 1994 in Storm Data are shown in Table 24 and Figure 5. There were about the same number of deaths in Rural (20%) as in Urban settings (23%), as shown in Figure 6. However, there were many more injuries in Urban than Rural settings.

Fatalities were probably reported somewhat more often in urban areas by Storm Data in the 1990s than injuries for reasons given below. Many of the same factors were also evident in the 1890s (section 3A).

•The ratio of injuries to deaths is 6.7:1 for the entire dataset. But the ratio is 3.3:1 in Rural settings, while it is over 8:1 in Urban settings.

•Cherington et al. (1999) used data from newly-automated medical reporting systems to find a ratio of 10:1.

•It can be concluded that an injury in a Rural situation may have been less likely to be reported in a newspaper, and subsequently in Storm Data, than an injury in a city.

•Injuries continue to be underreported more often than deaths in recent years (section 2C).

FIGURE 5. Rural, Urban, and Unknown lightning deaths, injuries, and casualties from 1991 to 1994.

The Urban-Rural setting can not be identified in more than half of the cases in Table 24 and Figure 5. The fatality difference without the Unknown settings is shown in Figure 6, since many injuries in Rural areas are unlikely to have been reported.

FIGURE 6. Rural versus Urban lightning-related deaths from 1991 to 1994, without Unknown cases.

The types of incidents for the 1990s are shown in Figure 7 and Table 25. The largest category is Outdoors for both deaths and injuries. Recreation and Sports are also frequent types of incidents. There are relatively few Agriculture incidents in the 1990s.

FIGURE 7. Type of incident of lightning-related deaths and injuries from 1991 to 1994.

The 1990s dataset is divided both by setting and type of incident in Figure 8 and Table 26. Comparison of settings shows the following:

Rural

The most common situation is Recreation, where individuals or small groups of people are pursuing outdoor leisure activities away from Urban settings. The other two significant types of Rural incidents were Agriculture and Outdoors.

Urban

More than half of the Urban casualties are Outdoors. A smaller number involve Recreation, Sports, and a few are Indoors.

Unknown

Settings that could not be identified most often involve Outdoors incidents. There are quite a few Recreation incidents where it could not be determined where the setting was Rural or Urban.

Comparison of the types of incidents in Figure 8 and Table 26 shows the following:

Agriculture

Virtually all Agriculture incidents occur in Rural settings, as expected.

Indoors

This is not very frequent in any setting.

Outdoors

Outdoor victims are significant in both Urban and Unknown settings.

Recreation

More than half of the Rural casualties are in Recreation, but they are less frequent in the other settings.

Small structures

A small percentage is evident in all settings.

Sports

There are quite a few Sports incidents in both Urban and Unknown settings.

Unknown

Up to 20% of the incidents could not be classified in the 1990s.

FIGURE 8. Type of incident of lightning-related deaths and injuries from 1991 to 1994 distributed by setting.

Next: Chapter 4, Section B: 1990s casualties by type of incident