HOUSTON — The Texas Department of State Health Services has posted its latest data on deaths related to the February winter storms.
Note: the video in this story is from April 6 — "ERCOT cites 7 causes for statewide outages during winter storm"
It shows there were a total of 125 winter storm-related deaths in Texas. Thirty-six of those were in Harris County, and six were in Galveston County. You can see the list of reported deaths county-by-county at the bottom of this story.
DSHS said there are three main ways the state is notified of disaster-related deaths: Medical certifiers submit a DSHS form specifying that a particular death was related to a disaster; Medical certifiers flag a death record as disaster related; DSHS epidemiologists match public reports of disaster-related deaths to death certificates.
"DSHS disaster epidemiologists continue to reconcile information about causes of death. The majority of verified deaths were associated with hypothermia. There have also been multiple deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents, carbon monoxide poisoning, medical equipment failure, exacerbation of chronic illness, lack of home oxygen, falls, and fire. Confirmed deaths occurred between Feb. 11 and March 5."
Last month, anthropologist Dr. Eric Jones, with UTHealth School of Public Health, said it’s important to look beyond the numbers. “There’s a story behind these tragedies,” Jones said. “What is the cause of each of the deaths … and whether then, in terms of public health, there is something that can be done.”
County | Number of Deaths
Aransas 1
Armstrong 1
Bandera 1
Bexar 6
Brazoria 1
Cass 1
Clay 1
Coleman 2
Collin 2
Dallas 7
Ector 1
Ellis 2
Fayette 1
Fort Bend 3
Freestone 1
Frio 1
Galveston 6
Grayson 1
Hale 1
Harris 36
Henderson 2
Hill 2
Hopkins 1
Hunt 1
Kaufman 1
Kendall 1
Kerr 1
Lamar 1
Lavaca 2
Lee 1
Leon 1
Limestone 1
McLennan 1
Montgomery 2
Pecos 1
Rusk 1
San Saba 1
Schleicher 1
Sutton 1
Taylor 6
Travis 11
Trinity 1
Uvalde 1
Webb 1
Wharton 1
Wichita 2
Williamson 3
Total 125