Here Comes the Hurricane: Haiti was calling for American help yesterday just hours after the storm passed over the country’s western tip. Winds up to 140 mph levelled homes and killed livestock. It’s clear that thousands of people will be left homeless, and Haiti still has 55,000 people living in temporary shelters since the devastating 2010 earthquake.

The storm is predicted to hit the tip of Florida by Thursday afternoon and travel up the coast, moving inland Sunday around New York City, and a bringing heavy weather to New Jersey, upstate New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley declared a state of emergency and ordered one million residents to evacuate coastal areas in advance of Hurricane Matthew. Highways were reversed with all lanes leading away from the coast.

The Undercard: Indiana Gov. Mike Pence may have won last night’s vice presidential debate by refusing to defend his running mate Donald Trump. Pence remained calm and bemusedly shook his head as Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine repeatedly tried to draw him into a discussion of Trump. “I can’t imagine how Governor Pence can defend the insult-driven, me-first style of Donald Trump,” Kaine said, and Pence didn’t.

Amazingly, Pence appeared to get away with delivering what has become the new big lie of the Trump campaign. “Senator, you and Hillary Clinton would know a lot about an insult-driven campaign,” Mr. Pence said. “The campaign of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine has been an avalanche of insults.” Clinton made one big mistake calling Trump supporters “deplorables.”

Pence was damaging on foreign policy, pinning the Middle East meltdown on Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. “She was the architect of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. We see entire portions of the world, particularly the wider Middle East, literally spinning out of control.”

Pence also artfully dodged the question of Donald Trump’s taxes:

KAINE: He stood on the stage last week and when Hillary said, you haven’t been paying taxes, he said, “That makes me smart.” So it’s smart not to pay for our military? It’s smart not to pay for veterans? It’s smart not to pay for teachers? And I guess all of us who do pay for those things, I guess we’re stupid. And the last thing I’ll say is this…

PENCE: Senator, do you take all the deductions that you’re entitled to?

In the postgame analysis, CNN political analyst Paul Begala noted how Pence had kept Trump at arm’s length and said, “Pence is running in 2020. I’m telling you, he threw Trump under the bus.”

Permawar: Russia confirms that it has sent an anti-aircraft missile system to its naval base in Syria. Defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said, “Let me remind you that the S-300 is a purely defensive system and poses no threat to anyone.” But since the Islamic State and Syrian rebels have no aircraft, the move can only be taken as a warning to the US and its allies to stay away from Russian and Syrian military operations.

Second Serve: The two-year ban placed on tennis player Maria Sharapova for using a banned drug has been shortened to 15 months after she appealed her punishment. She had been using a heart medication called meldonium that can improve blood flow and was not notified when the drug was banned for athletes. Sharapova will be eligible to play again in April.

Nation: Investigators have recovered the data and video recorders in the front car of the New Jersey commuter train that crashed into the Hoboken train station. The recorder in the engine, which was in the rear, was not working.

The Obit Page: Gloria Naylor, whose first novel, “The Women of Brewster Place,” won a National Book Award and was turned into a television mini-series produced by Oprah Winfrey, has died at age 66. Naylor wrote about poverty, racism, sexism and gay rights, usually through black female characters.

Early Returns: The GOP tweeted triumphantly that, “The consensus was clear after the dust settled, Mike Pence was the clear winner of the debate.”

They posted that two hours before the debate began.

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