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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and this is another classic episode from

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Speaker 1: our erstwhile host, Christian Sagar. In recent years, reported instances

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Speaker 1: of death by lightning strike here in the United States

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Speaker 1: are way down. The year this episode originally aired, seventeen

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Speaker 1: was a record low. About eighteen and twenty nineteen saw

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Speaker 1: a couple more. But still, let's explore why this is,

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Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff is Christian Sagar. Across the United States,

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Speaker 1: lightning has killed fifteen people so far in that's according

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Speaker 1: to National Weather Service data. While those deaths are tragic,

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Speaker 1: that's fewer than half the thirty eight lightning deaths that

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Speaker 1: the nation had in sixteen. And we're on track to

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Speaker 1: have the lowest number of recorded lightning fatalities since nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty because that's the earliest year for which the federal

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Speaker 1: governed MINT has data. The government actually maintains a year

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Speaker 1: by year breakdown of deaths from lightning and other weather

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Speaker 1: threats during that period. But if you look at those

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Speaker 1: historical numbers, what's most startling is the long term decrease

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Speaker 1: in lightening deaths over that period. In nineteen forty three,

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Speaker 1: the most lethal year on record, four hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: two people were killed by lightning, and throughout the nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: and average of three hundred and twenty nine point three

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Speaker 1: people died each year, but in the nineteen fifties. In

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Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, the rates started dropping dramatically and steadily

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Speaker 1: kept decreasing, to the point where over the two thousand tens,

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Speaker 1: the average annual fatality rate is about a tenth of

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Speaker 1: what it was during the nineteen forties. So why are

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Speaker 1: so many fewer people being killed by lightning these days

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Speaker 1: than in the past. Well, one major reason is urbanization.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen forty, according to the US Census Bureau, forty

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Speaker 1: three point five per cent of the Name Sations population

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Speaker 1: lived in rural areas. By two thousand and ten, that

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Speaker 1: number was down to nineteen point three percent, with more

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Speaker 1: than eighty percent of the population living in cities. And today,

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Speaker 1: according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the average Americans

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Speaker 1: spends nine of their time indoors, which generally is the

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Speaker 1: safest place to be during a lightning storm. But that

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you can't be injured or killed by

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Speaker 1: lightning inside a house, and seven decades ago, not only

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Speaker 1: where there are more people in rural areas, but they

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Speaker 1: also spent more of their time working outdoors, where they

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Speaker 1: were more vulnerable to lightning, as Ronald Holla, and meteorologist

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Speaker 1: who studies lightning deaths, explained in the Atlantic and farmers

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties still used teams of horses to

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Speaker 1: pull their plows, and it took them all day to

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Speaker 1: finish tilling a twenty acre field. Modern farmers, in contrast,

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Speaker 1: are more likely to be sitting inside a fully enclosed

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Speaker 1: tractor with a metal housing that offers lightning protection. When

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Speaker 1: people are killed by lightning these days, it often happens

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Speaker 1: when they're enjoying some outdoor leisure activity. That's according to

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Speaker 1: a seventeen analysis of lightning deaths over the past decade

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Speaker 1: by John S. Jen Sennius Jr. He's a lightning safety

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Speaker 1: specialist with National Weather Service. Gen Sennius found that of

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Speaker 1: the three hundred and fifty two deaths over the past decade,

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Speaker 1: thirty three people died while fishing, while twenty were on

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Speaker 1: the beach, eighteen were camping, in sixteen were boating. When

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Speaker 1: it came to sports, soccer players accounted for twelve deaths,

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Speaker 1: while golfers accounted for nine, a piece of information that

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Speaker 1: shows a golf course isn't necessarily the most dangerous place

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Speaker 1: during a storm. Farming and ranching, in contrast, accounted for

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Speaker 1: just evan teen of the recent lightning depths. Today's episode

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Speaker 1: was written by Patrick J. Tiger and produced by Tristan

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Speaker 1: McNeil and Tyler Clang. For more on listen lots of

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Speaker 1: other curious topics, visit how stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff

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Speaker 1: is production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my

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