When Hurricane Sandy barreled into the northeastern United States in October 2012, its destruction was immediate and visible. Homes were swallowed by water, power lines snapped, and entire neighborhoods disappeared beneath surging tides. In the months that followed, bulldozers cleared debris, electricity returned, and streets were rebuilt. To an outside observer, the wounds seemed to heal.
But nature’s fury often leaves scars that cannot be seen on shattered coastlines or broken rooftops. According to a groundbreaking study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York University, the storm’s legacy lives on in the hearts—literally—of those who endured it. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, revealed that older adults living in flood-hit areas of New Jersey carried a 5% higher risk of developing heart disease for as long as five years after the storm.
In other words, long after the winds quieted and the waters receded, Sandy’s invisible aftershocks continued to ripple through lives, not as crashing waves but as heart attacks, strokes, and chronic heart failure.
Disaster in the Body
For decades, most research on natural disasters has focused on the immediate aftermath—injuries, infections, mental health crises. Yet Sandy’s story shows that the body does not forget so easily. Catastrophic events can set off slow-burning health crises, especially among older adults whose resilience is already stretched thin.
The Weill Cornell and NYU team examined Medicare data from over 120,000 people, ages 65 and older, living in New Jersey, New York City, and Connecticut. This immense dataset allowed them to see patterns that individual doctors might miss. By comparing ZIP codes that were submerged during the storm to nearby areas that escaped flooding, and carefully matching communities by age, race, income, and pre-storm health, they were able to isolate the true effect of Sandy’s floodwaters on long-term heart health.
The results were startling. Heart failure rates rose in the hardest-hit neighborhoods, particularly in New Jersey, and the risk did not fade quickly. Instead, it lingered, casting a shadow for four to five years after the storm. The research marked one of the first rigorous attempts to quantify the chronic, cardiovascular toll of flooding on vulnerable populations.
Why Hearts Break After Storms
Why would a hurricane—a sudden, ferocious event—continue to burden hearts years later? The answer lies in the storm’s collision with social and biological fragility.
When disaster strikes, it is not only buildings that collapse but also the invisible structures of daily life: routines, support systems, access to care. In New Jersey, where many affected areas had lower median incomes and higher deprivation scores, people were already living closer to the edge. These communities endured not just the physical devastation of floodwaters but also the emotional toll of displacement, financial strain, and prolonged stress.
Stress itself is not a fleeting visitor. It courses through the body, raising blood pressure, disturbing sleep, and fueling inflammation—all of which erode cardiovascular health over time. Layered atop this are barriers to medical care: clinics damaged, transportation disrupted, insurance coverage strained. For older adults, especially those managing chronic conditions, each missed appointment or delayed medication refills can have lasting consequences.
In this way, a storm that lasted only days can ignite a cascade of health problems that unfold over years.
Regional Stories of Survival
One of the most intriguing findings of the research was how differently Sandy’s health toll played out across regions. In a related study published in Frontiers in Public Health, Dr. Arnab Ghosh and colleagues discovered that elderly individuals living in flooded areas faced a 9% higher mortality rate in the five years following the storm. Yet this effect varied sharply by geography.
In New York City, mortality increased by about 8%, while in Connecticut the increase soared to 19%. Coastal New York and much of New Jersey, surprisingly, did not show the same jump in deaths. These regional differences raise profound questions. How do infrastructure, community networks, and social safety nets change the way people survive disasters—not only in the moment but in the years that follow?
New York City, with its dense hospitals and emergency systems, may have offered some buffer. Connecticut’s more suburban landscape, with reliance on single-family homes and less centralized care, may have left older adults more isolated and vulnerable. The disparities suggest that resilience is not just a matter of weathering the storm but of the systems that catch people afterward.
A Natural Experiment in Human Vulnerability
For researchers, Hurricane Sandy offered what they call a “natural controlled experiment.” No scientist would design a storm, but when one arrives, it creates conditions that allow us to see human health in stark relief. By following a large, diverse, stable population like Medicare recipients, researchers could trace how disaster exposure alters health trajectories over time.
This was not about anecdote or individual tragedy—it was about population-level patterns that reveal how fragile our societies truly are in the face of climate-fueled disasters. Each heart attack, each stroke, each premature death is not only a personal loss but part of a larger story about how humans and their environments interact.
Preparing for Tomorrow’s Storms
As the climate warms, hurricanes like Sandy are expected to grow stronger and more frequent. Warmer oceans feed more powerful storms, and rising seas push floodwaters further inland. What Sandy revealed is that the damage of these storms does not vanish with reconstruction—it lingers in bodies, especially among those least able to recover.
The research team urges policymakers and health systems to rethink disaster preparedness. Too often, emergency response is focused on immediate survival—rescue operations, shelters, emergency rooms. But long-term health monitoring, particularly for chronic diseases like heart failure, needs to be built into recovery frameworks.
Communities with aging populations must be given special attention. Older adults are not just more likely to suffer physically during a storm; they are more likely to carry the burden for years afterward. Training healthcare providers, strengthening local clinics, and ensuring continuity of care after disasters could save lives long after the winds subside.
The Emotional Truth Beneath the Data
Behind the statistics lies an emotional truth: disasters ripple through human lives in ways numbers can only partially capture. Imagine being 75 years old, your home flooded, your medications washed away, your doctor’s office shuttered. Even after the cleanup, the anxiety never fully leaves. Each heavy rainstorm rekindles fear. Each insurance bill tightens the chest. Over time, the body keeps the score.
Hurricane Sandy’s legacy reminds us that health is not just about biology but about environment, stress, and community. It reminds us that healing after disaster requires more than repairing roads—it requires caring for hearts, both literal and metaphorical.
A Call to See the Invisible
What makes this research so powerful is its ability to reveal what might otherwise remain unseen. A rebuilt boardwalk tells only half the story. The real narrative continues in the quiet struggles of older adults whose lives were altered not in the eye of the storm but in the slow, exhausting years that followed.
By uncovering these hidden aftershocks, scientists like Dr. Ghosh and Dr. Abramson push us to think differently about resilience. True resilience is not measured by how quickly we restore electricity or clear debris. It is measured by whether the most vulnerable among us can continue to live, thrive, and age with dignity long after the floodwaters have gone.
As we look to a future of intensifying storms, this truth becomes urgent: disasters are never just about a single moment of destruction. They are about the long echoes that shape our health, our communities, and our sense of safety. And if we choose to listen, these echoes can guide us toward a more compassionate, prepared, and resilient tomorrow.
More information: Arnab K. Ghosh et al. Hurricane Exposure and Risk of Long-Term Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes, JAMA Network Open (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.30335 jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman … /fullarticle/2838441
