Friday, October 4

In case you missed it, the United States Vice Presidential Debate took place on Tuesday night, with Democratic nominee Tim Walz facing off against Republican nominee JD Vance in an intense debate. Look out for a deep dive article by Mihir Gupta coming later this week on the political event.

The death toll from Hurricane Helene continues to rise after the storm devastated the southeastern US, and hundreds of thousands of people are still out of power.

Helene made landfall in Florida's Big Bend region last week as a major Category 4 hurricane, and hit the area hard with severe winds and massive storm surge of over 20 feet. However, the worst-hit areas were actually farther north into the Appalachian Mountains. North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia experienced heavy rains for days before the storm arrived, sparking landslides and causing rivers to burst their banks by several feet. Homes were completely washed away by the raging waters, and millions of people were out of power for days.

Now, over a week later, over 750,000 people are still out of power, and the true effects of the damage are just starting to surface in some areas. At least 72 people have died in Buncombe County -- where the city of Asheville is located -- alone, while over 200 others are still missing. North Carolina was the state with the largest loss of life -- 106 people were killed in North Carolina alone -- but Florida was hit extremely hard by the winds and storm surge. However, evacuations saved many residents of towns in the path of Helene, but no evacuations were issued for any area beyond the Florida coast. A total of 213 people have been killed by the storm, making it the deadliest storm to make landfall in the mainland United States since the notorious Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

As for the electricity problem, Helene did so much damage in some mountainous regions that the infrastructure to supply power to those areas was completely "wiped out," according to local electricity supplier Duke Energy, and will need to be totally rebuilt. However, due to the fact that many major roads in the region have been damaged or washed away, aid is being transported in by helicopter or plane, and companies are struggling to get the necessary equipment into areas that need it. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's Starlink is offering a month of free satellite service in place of internet, as most of the cellular towers in North Carolina's affected regions are down.

Military personnel and thousands of people from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been deployed to bring in crucial supplies, help search for survivors, clean up the debris, and rebuild from this terrible disaster, but it will take time.

Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): The first-ever US city to host the Olympics was St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904, which came just eight years after the first modern Olympic games in 1896 in Athens, Greece.

Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): You cannot change how someone thinks, but you can give them a tool to use which will lead them to think differently. (Buckminster Fuller)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Posterity (noun)- Posterity is a formal word that refers to all future generations of people. It is often, though not always, used with for or to.

In a Sentence: A record of the events was preserved for posterity.