Columbus Day and Halloween are in the past; Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving are in our future. October is the subject at hand. While the month is renowned for financial debacles, it was human tragedies that took center stage this past month. October began with nine students shot at a community college in Oregon. Two other campuses, one in Texas and the other in Arizona, were the venues for two students being shot and killed. A car plowed into a homecoming parade in Stillwater, Oklahoma, killing four and injuring forty-seven. Nineteen people were killed when a doctors-without-borders hospital in Afghanistan was mistakenly hit by U.S. forces. Two suicide bombers at a peace rally in the Turkish capital of Ankara killed at least a hundred. The month ended with a Russian passenger airliner, an Airbus 221, crashing in the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people aboard.
Mother nature, not wanting to be out-done, did her own damage. Hurricane Joaquin, an Atlantic storm that missed mainland USA, sank the U.S. based cargo ship El Faro, drowning all 33 aboard, including 28 Americans. At least 17 people died in South Carolina, as drenching rains temporarily wiped out 75 miles of I-95. A mudslide in Guatemala killed at least 240, with dozens missing. Hurricane Patricia, the largest storm to ever hit the Western Hemisphere with winds of over 200 miles per hour, slammed into Southwestern Mexico with sustained winds of over 165 miles per hour. Luck and prior evacuation plans limited deaths and damage. Remnants caused intense flooding in Houston and Galveston a day or so later, with rainfalls of over an inch per hour. At least 340 people were known dead from a 7.5 earthquake that hit remote sections of Afghanistan and Pakistan. No matter hand-wringing claims of those on the Left, man has limited ability to prevent natural disasters. Nature heeds her own drummer.
