In the Bronx, Jose Sierra ignored his sister’s warning not to check on the boat his wife had gotten him as a gift. In Bristol, Conn., Shane Seaver and a friend could not resist the impulse to view the storm’s destruction from a canoe. In Princeton, N.J., Michael Kenwood waded into angry waters to try to save someone who might have been trapped in a car.

In Nashville, N.C., Ricky Webb went out to feed his horses because he religiously fed them twice a day. In Newport News, Va., 11-year-old Zahir Robinson was lying in bed, dozing beside his mother, a place that until this past weekend had always been snug and safe.

They are among the victims of Hurricane Irene’s unmitigated fury, the ultimate cost entered on the ledger of the storm. The death count remains a changing number. But it has been estimated at more than 40 people, in 13 states, as young as 11 and as old as 89, those at every stage of life. A tenet of natural disasters is that they choose their victims capriciously and without remorse.

Some victims were in cars. In boats. On surfboards. On foot.

People died while sending text messages to friends as they scampered through the storm and while sitting in their sunroom when a chimney plummeted through the glass ceiling. They were crushed by a tree while chopping down another tree and electrocuted by touching a porch railing electrified by drooping power lines.