More than 90% of residents in Houston and Harris County lost power, some for days, and nearly 8 in 10 had to throw out spoiled food, sometimes more than once. On top of that, about half of all residents reported damage to their homes or property, adding to the financial strain. For many, these storms didn’t just cause temporary setbacks — they created long-term financial challenges.

“The widespread experience of power outages, loss of utilities, and damage to homes and property was something we anticipated seeing in this study because we lived through it,” said Daniel Potter, director of the Houston Population Research Center at the Kinder Institute. “But with many losing hundreds of dollars of spoiled food and then losing income — that is a compounding effect that can make it all the more difficult to recover.”

Other key findings include:

• About 6 in 10 residents reported a combined food loss from both events of about $500.

• Over two-thirds of residents reported their health was impacted in some way.

• About half of residents experienced home or property damage from one of the storms, and about 1 in 7 experienced vehicle damage.

While FEMA and other agencies have tracked the physical damage from these storms, the Kinder Institute’s new report, “2024 Storm Impacts and Harris County: A Descriptive Overview,” examines the cumulative impacts, including damage to property and effects on residents’ health and finances.

“We knew before these storms that nearly half of Houston-area residents said they would struggle to come up with $400 to cover an unexpected expense,” Potter said. “A storm that wipes out hundreds of dollars of groceries is an example of an unexpected expense.”

With Houston’s storm season approaching and hurricane season just around the corner, these findings can help officials and preparedness efforts better understand last year’s widespread effects.

In addition to FEMA aid to households affected by disasters — which totaled over $1 billion for those affected by the derecho and Beryl — the Texas Workforce Commission provides Disaster Unemployment Assistance in counties under a presidential disaster declaration.

“As Houston and Harris County prepare for the next disaster — because it is not a matter of if but when it will occur — additional research is needed to further understand the disparities of impacts across neighborhoods and communities so that resources can be quickly deployed where it may be needed most,” Potter said.

The survey was conducted on over 5,000 Harris County residents in July-August 2024.

HIV is a virus that attacks cells in the body fighting off infections, thus weakening the immune system. Antiretroviral therapies can treat the HIV infection by halting the spread of the virus and protecting the immune system, but do not cure the virus. Mount Sinai researchers have developed a method to genetically mark immune cells that carry HIV, an important milestone that could potentially lead to approaches that eliminate the dormant HIV-infected cells and cure the virus.

The team created a novel cell lineage-tracing model to reveal where the virus hides, and developed genetic profiles of T cells, or white blood cells that are crucial to immune response and retain either active or inactive HIV. The researchers said their genetic analysis of the dormant HIV-infected cells provides a new gene pathway for potential treatment.

“The main obstacle to cure the infection is the virus hides in immune cells that are difficult to identify and study. If we can identify the cells infected with HIV, it will help bring us closer to figuring out how to eliminate them,” said corresponding author Benjamin K. Chen, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases), Microbiology, Pharmacological Sciences, and Immunology and Immunotherapy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

The researchers developed a genetic system to mark HIV-infected cells and then study both infected and dormant cell populations. They used humanized mice models to develop a fluorescent red-to-green switch triggered by the HIV infection that persists even if the virus is dormant. This switch results in the permanent marking of HIV-infected cells in mice and enables lineage tracing of the HIV infection. The research team profiled more than 47,000 T cells including acutely infected, treated, and uninfected cells, to then identify helper T cells (which detect infections), memory cells, naïve cells (which fight off infections), proliferating cells, regulatory T cells, and subsets within these larger groups. Through their analysis, they predicted and identified nine distinct types of T cells that housed inactive HIV cells. Their investigation also identified persistent T cells with HIV even after 10 and 29 days of antiretroviral therapies.

The findings suggest new therapies that target the reservoir of dormant HIV-infected cells as a potential cure for the virus. The Mount Sinai team will next study and test specific approaches to reactivate dormant HIV and determine if it is possible to reduce the reservoir of infected cells.

The study was supported by funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health (AI116191, AI162223, S10OD026880, and S10OD030463), and the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) grant from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (UL1TR004419).

Probiotics, found in fermented foods such as yogurt and kimchi, are living microbes that improve the gut microbiome, shifting the balance toward beneficial bacteria and yeasts. They can also ease digestive issues and reduce inflammation. These active cultures need food and protection to survive harsh gut conditions, so prebiotics — substances like dietary fibers and oligosaccharides — are sometimes added to probiotic-containing products to create synbiotic foods. Because chocolate is a treat that many people enjoy, researchers have used it to test various combinations of pre- and probiotics. Some methods for including prebiotics are laborious, so Smriti Gaur and Shubhi Singh explored prebiotics that would not require extensive processing — corn and honey — in chocolate fortified with probiotics.

The team developed five chocolates for their study. One contained only basic chocolate ingredients, including cocoa butter, cocoa powder and milk powder. Four different synbiotic test samples also contained prebiotics (corn and honey), one probiotic (either Lactobacillus acidophilus La-14 or Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG) and one flavor additive (either cinnamon or orange). When the researchers examined several properties of the chocolate samples, they found that fat levels, which influence texture and mouthfeel, were consistent among all five samples. However, there were differences:

• Flavorings impacted some characteristics of the synbiotic chocolates. For example, orange flavorings decreased pH, increased moisture and enhanced protein levels compared to all the other samples.
• The four synbiotic samples had higher antioxidant levels than the control.
• Synbiotic samples had less “snap” compared to the control, suggesting that the additional ingredients disrupted the structure of the chocolate.

The total microbial counts of the synbiotic chocolate samples decreased during storage, but the probiotic microbes still exhibited viability after 125 days. This time period is longer than other researchers have reported when using different bacteria and prebiotics in chocolates. Finally, when Gaur and Singh exposed the synbiotic chocolates to simulated gastrointestinal conditions, the probiotics in the samples maintained substantial viability for more than 5 hours.

The researchers also snuck a taste of the confections. “Personally, we enjoyed the orange-flavored chocolates the most, where the vibrant citrus notes complemented the rich cocoa, and it had a slightly softer texture that made each bite feel more luxurious,” says Gaur. “In the future, we are excited to explore additional health benefits of these chocolates while thoroughly investigating their sensory and nutritional profiles, with the goal of creating an even more wholesome and enjoyable treat.”

The authors report no external funding for this work.