Science and Technology
An Explanation of Hurricane Helene’s Creation, Destruction and Victims' Recovery Plan
By Lillian Hannan
Tuesday, Sept. 24, tragedy strikes as Hurricane Helene forms in the Southeast of the United States, over the next five days wreaking havoc across six states and killing over 200 citizens.
How Hurricanes Work
Hurricanes form near the equator over the ocean. They start by collecting rising warm air in a circular motion that then cools and creates a low-pressure system. Therefore, attracting more air and creating dense areas of water droplets that form heavy clouds. These clouds rotate with the rising warm air and increase in wind speed as the hurricane collects more molecules and momentum.
When answering about the creation of Hurricane Helene, Jonathan DeWolf, the Washington AP Environmental Science teacher, shares how it is currently a La Nina year. This means there are stronger winds and colder temperatures in the South Pacific, which influence Southeastern states to be more hurricane-prone. However, hurricanes cannot only be blamed on natural factors.
Climate Change Effects
Climate change has caused hurricanes to have an extreme rise in intensity over the past 20 years. De Wolf explains how this works by stating, “The air temperatures are warmer as well, and that makes it capable of holding more water vapor... [which] was the big problem with this hurricane... The winds weaken as it goes on shore, but there is still a lot of moisture, and it carries all this moisture to NC.” Continuing on to explain how inertia keeps this momentum and heavy rainfall going, even as winds lessen.
Timeline
Due to both climate change and natural factors, hurricanes have become a prevalent threat to those that live in the Southeast. However, Hurricane Helene was a deadly reminder to many citizens of the hurricane’s severity.
Helene starts forming on Tuesday, Sept. 24, spending several days collecting speed as a tropical storm, before both Georgia and Florida declare a state of emergency. Wednesday, Sept. 25, the storm increased to a Category One hurricane, raining over Mexico and flooding tourist beach towns, Cozumel and Cancun. Before making a sharp northern turn, continue to collect water vapor and momentum in the Gulf of Mexico while heading straight for the Florida coast.
The Impact of Self-Driving Cars Across the City
By: Azalya Andrews
Over the past couple of years AI machines have been inserted into our society. We hear and see AI advancing quickly. As far as San Francisco, our history with self-driving cars starts in 2022 when companies Cruise and Waymo began operating and roaming the streets.
Self-driving cars are not a new concept as they’ve been an idea and worked on since 1986. The first one to be issued a license was a Toyota Prius in the state of Nevada in 2012. Many are excited about this advancement in technology, but as always there’s another side that is concerned about the safety of the community with these personless cars. While car accidents involving humans happen everyday and are fatal, is a self-driving car any safer?
In Oct. 2023 an accident involving a Cruise car occurred in San Francisco. In the picture from the SF Chronicle they show where they found the woman, trapped under the car with fatal injuries. The car did not stop moving until she was under the car near the back wheels. While it was not the Cruise car that hit her, and was another driver she was thrown into the Cruise car. While the other person drove off she still was stuck under the car, and from that incident Cruise cars were recalled city wide.
This story could be taken two ways, one you could put blame on the car for not stopping regardless if she was thrown into the car.. You could also praise the car for stopping at all.
No matter what you choose, the reaction time of the car was too slow to save the woman from critical injury.
That’s more so the bottom line of the situation. This is one of many situations that can happen, reaction times are everything on the road.
What do most people think about these cars? What’s SF’s opinion?
Well, about 29% of Americans are excited about this advancement. The cars are being used instead of Uber’s or Taxi’s to get around, and people also deem the cars safer than an actual driver. About 61% of Americans have concerns about cars and would not want to use or own one. And the rest you could say have mixed feelings on the topic but aren’t trusting of it. The main goal of these cars is to improve the environment by making a car that doesn’t require gas. Many vehicles have been made like this but is the self-driving part necessary?
Last question the public may have is what is the purpose of these cars?
According to an article on ‘Simply Fleet About the Cars', the main goal is to make the roads safer and to decrease the amount of traffic on the road. As said before, Another goal is to improve the environment by cutting out the use of gas, while all these goals are something the general public would agree with, the issue is how we plan to reach these goals. Instead of relying on something as mysterious as AI how can we as a society reach these goals without unknown machines because eventually we will fully rely on them and this creates more impactful, long-term problems.