In August, 2005, Anand Irimpen, a cardiologist and a professor at Tulane University, evacuated New Orleans during the approach of Hurricane Katrina. He and his family watched it make landfall from a hotel room in Dallas. “The storm passed by and I was ready to go home,” Irimpen told me. “But then my wife said, ‘The levees broke. We can’t go back.’ ” The damage to New Orleans lingered; they ended up staying in Dallas for months. And when his hospital finally reopened, in February of the following year, doctors began noticing unexpected changes. “My fellows said they were seeing more heart attacks than before the storm,” Irimpen recalled.

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At first, he thought they must be exaggerating. “You can’t just say that,” he told t

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