Hi, I`m Carl Azuz, and here`s a look at some of the stories making headlines today.

 

Wildfires are burning across parts of Texas. Firefighters are making progress against them, but the fires still threaten dozens of homes.

 

In New York, a 9/11 memorial is getting ready to open for the 10th anniversary of the attacks. The designer says the memorial is the architectural equivalent of a moment of silence.

 

And in Libya, rebels search for long-time leader Moammar Gadhafi. It was 42 years ago today that Gadhafi took control of his country by overthrowing Libya`s king. More events that happened on this day in history are coming right up. This is CNN Student News.

 

First up, the aftermath of Irene. The storm may be gone, the floodwaters are not. Vermont, New Jersey, upstate New York, these are some of the spots that got the worst flooding after Irene barreled its way through the U.S. east coast.  

 

Some areas are still completely unreachable by road. So search and rescue teams are using boats and rafts like this one. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. One mayor in New Jersey said all it takes is a phone call, and for someone to say they need help. Then the boats head out and get them to safety.

 

Another official said the rescues are happening pretty much 24 hours a day. Flood warnings still in effect for more than half a dozen states yesterday. Once the waters start to go back down, authorities say the next step will be going door-to-door.  

 

They need to check things, like furnaces and hot water heaters to help prevent explosions when these appliances are restarted. According to government estimates, more than a million people still don`t have electricity.

 

On this day in history, in 1897, after two years of construction, the first U.S. subway line opened in Boston, Massachusetts.  

 

In 1939, German forces launched an invasion of Poland. The land and air attack marked the beginning of what would become World War II.

 

And in 1985, a group of U.S. and French explorers discovered the wreck of the Titanic on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. The famous cruise liner was located 73 years after it sank.

 

A group of scientists is hoping to make its own discoveries along the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. These researchers are examining the spot where last year`s devastating oil spill happened. More than 200 million gallons of oil leaked out into the Gulf. What`s been the impact on life under the surface? Colleen McEdwards dives in with details.

 

In the sediments that I looked at under the microscope, which essentially every sample that we collected on that cruise, there was essentially nothing in it that was moving around.  

 

And, you know, there were no worms, there were no shrimp, there were no amphipods, there were no protozoa. It was just. It was just sediment.

 

This video, the first of its kind from the area where the Deepwater Horizon rig stood shows what Dr. Samantha Joye calls a dead zone, deep in the seabed, near last year`s Gulf oil spill.

 

Look at all the oil.

 

Dr. Joye describes the oil remaining on the ocean floor within a few kilometers of the capped well as a strange brown pudding-like layer of part oil, part who-knows-what. And even more troubling, the area does not appear to be recovering yet.

 

So we sampled in September 2010, December 2010 and now, when we`ll be back out this fall. But to see the trajectory, how the temporal trajectory looks, and so far, from, you know, the September to December samples, there was absolutely no change in activity, no change in abundance, and.

 

So no improvement?

 

No improvement at all.

 

So while the surface of the Gulf of Mexico now looks picturesque, the ocean floor tells a very different story. Further study is expected to yield more answers, but it may take years to fully gauge the impact of the oil spill on the most basic creatures of the deep.

 

The Gulf of Mexico provides so much to so many. We owe it to the system to truly understand all of the various scales of impact, and to do that, it`s going to take a lot of effort from a lot of people for a very long time.