Speaker 1: This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty The Gary and Shannon Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: We will continue to watch what's going on in Florida.
Speaker 2: President Biden is giving a quick update right now and
Speaker 2: just basically says that FEMA is going to open a
Speaker 2: bunch of disaster recovery centers throughout the state of Florida
Speaker 2: and anywhere else.
Speaker 3: That they would be needed.
Speaker 2: There are, i mean images out of let's see, that's
Speaker 2: Madera Beach that I'm looking at right now, where there's
Speaker 2: just all kinds of detritus still sitting on the streets.
Speaker 2: It looks like they're still in piles from a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks ago, from when Hurricane Helene went through. That
Speaker 2: was one of the big concerns that Governor DeSantis kept mentioning,
Speaker 2: was that he wanted to get as much of that
Speaker 2: out of the way as possible so that it didn't
Speaker 2: become a problem. When Hurricane Milton barreled through last night,
Speaker 2: it was a Category three by the time it made landfall.
Speaker 2: That made its way all the way across the state
Speaker 2: of Florida is now out over the Atlantic and It's
Speaker 2: the weirdest thing to me about hurricanes is it's a
Speaker 2: beautiful sun. It's a beautiful eighty degree day on the
Speaker 2: west coast of Florida right now, but they're dealing with
Speaker 2: what was last night. As we heard from your family friends,
Speaker 2: six or seven hours of just continuous rain and you know,
Speaker 2: eighty five one hundred mile an hour winds.
Speaker 1: They had lived in Florida their entire lives and said
Speaker 1: it was the worst they had ever seen. And my
Speaker 1: in laws right now, they're still struggling to get power
Speaker 1: back there in Orlando, which wasn't even hit, you know,
Speaker 1: nearly as hard as they thought, and their backup generator
Speaker 1: didn't work. So even those who thought they were prepared
Speaker 1: are running into problems and with no sign of exactly
Speaker 1: when that power could come on. And millions of people
Speaker 1: were impacted by this, Not to mention the tornado aspect
Speaker 1: of this is what I find particularly terrifying. Where at
Speaker 1: least twenty were confirmed to hit and those are just
Speaker 1: the ones that we're seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the power outage numbers are encouraging.
Speaker 3: I guess we're right.
Speaker 2: After this thing happened, it was about three point four
Speaker 2: or almost three point five million that were without power,
Speaker 2: and they've already gotten a few hundred thousand people back online.
Speaker 4: Oh that's fast.
Speaker 2: I mean that that's a testament to not just Governor
Speaker 2: DeSantis and his administration for planning the way they do,
Speaker 2: but the men and women that are out there, you know,
Speaker 2: humping the equipment to get those lines back up.
Speaker 1: That's and it was great to hear and very unusual
Speaker 1: to hear from people who are on the ground that
Speaker 1: they felt so calm in a sense, even though this
Speaker 1: was a monster, unprecedented, historic storm, because they had so
Speaker 1: much communication from the government. They had so much information
Speaker 1: flooding in and so they knew what to expect when
Speaker 1: they were getting, you know, up to the minute updates.
Speaker 2: And that's unusual that people say they feel reassured when
Speaker 2: they're the government.
Speaker 4: I know, imagine that.
Speaker 3: It's eleven o'clock. It's time to jump into swamp.
Speaker 5: Watch. The swamp is horrible.
Speaker 4: The government doesn't work.
Speaker 3: Good man, you're gonna make this like a reality TV show.
Speaker 3: Was a bad dos always a pleasure to be anywhere from.
Speaker 5: Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: Hey Joe, a town all too clearly built on a swamp,
Speaker 2: and in so many ways still a swamp.
Speaker 3: I have to watch my work. Somebody said, drain the swamp.
Speaker 3: I said, oh, that's so hell keeppp man.
Speaker 2: You know the thing, Well, we might as well jump
Speaker 2: into the swamp. You're not from the swamp, and I'm
Speaker 2: just saying you have to spend some time there work there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the congressman from the fight in twenty seventh, my congressional districts,
Speaker 2: Congressman Mike Garcia is here.
Speaker 3: Thanks for coming in, Thanks for having me. Appreciate you.
Speaker 3: I know you're busy. I mean you got a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks before election day. Well that's right.
Speaker 2: What does your day look like on days like this
Speaker 2: outside of the interviews with us and with Woody and
Speaker 2: all the important people.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a lot of a lot of campaigning right now.
Speaker 6: And it's like having two full time jobs. I am still,
Speaker 6: you know, the elected representative for the twenty seventh congressional district.
Speaker 6: So official duties half of my time, which is six
Speaker 6: eight hours a day, and then campaigning six eight hours
Speaker 6: a day as well on top of that, and then
Speaker 6: events on the weekends and getting out the boat, canvassing,
Speaker 6: knocking on doors and making phone calls.
Speaker 2: And reintroduce yourself to your family every once in a while,
Speaker 2: once in a while.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you guys remember me. Yeah, it is great.
Speaker 1: We were talking about how, you know, especially for West
Speaker 1: as congressman, how you have to traverse a country then
Speaker 1: you have to not only do that role, but you
Speaker 1: have to campaign. I'm curious, you know what keeps you
Speaker 1: up at night?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I try to be the guy that keeps others
Speaker 6: up at night. But the reality is is, I'm very
Speaker 6: concerned about our country right now. You know, as someone
Speaker 6: who served as a naval aviator in combat, as a veteran,
Speaker 6: as someone who worked at a large aerospace and defense company,
Speaker 6: I see our country right now in a very precarious position.
Speaker 6: I think we are today as a country just as
Speaker 6: vulnerable as we were on September tenth, two thousand and one,
Speaker 6: and we're in a blizzard of crises. And what's concerning
Speaker 6: me is that while we are in the midst of
Speaker 6: all these crises, we seem to be looking inwards and
Speaker 6: fighting each other and using this you know, political season
Speaker 6: as a reason to do it.
Speaker 3: But it's it's persistent.
Speaker 6: It's a complete us versus them, Republicans versus Democrats, Left
Speaker 6: versus right mentality, and I think we we need to
Speaker 6: remember they were all Americans, and we still have Russias
Speaker 6: with threat China as a massive threat right now, we
Speaker 6: have an open border, we've got an economy that's flailing
Speaker 6: on the verge of imploding, and we've got to come
Speaker 6: together right now. We need weaker parties, we need stronger leaders.
Speaker 6: And I see the toxicity not only in the swamp
Speaker 6: with the elected officials, but even even with constituents, the
Speaker 6: way they treat each other, the way they talk to
Speaker 6: each other. If they don't agree, they banish each other.
Speaker 6: And I think that's the opposite of what we need
Speaker 6: right now.
Speaker 2: Well, we talked earlier about this kerfuffle at CBS News
Speaker 2: where news anchor was questioning a guy who wrote a book,
Speaker 2: a pro Palestinian book, and was asking why he didn't
Speaker 2: include the Israeli perspective.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was a very civil conversation, two smart guys talking
Speaker 2: about I mean, it seems like that's the way it
Speaker 2: used to be. But then CBS News comes back and
Speaker 2: scolds the news anchor for ask having the audacity to
Speaker 2: ask a question an opposing view.
Speaker 3: We're losing that sort of.
Speaker 2: Civil discs, civil discourse, yeah, about some of these bigger issues.
Speaker 6: And frankly, we're losing media as an objective news source
Speaker 6: right and mainstream media there's effectively become a fourth branch
Speaker 6: of government that is clearly biasing towards towards the left here,
Speaker 6: and it's very frustrating. It's tough to get the truth
Speaker 6: out sometimes. And so this is why folks like you
Speaker 6: are very, very important. You know, I've never asked for
Speaker 6: questions in advance. I don't ask for topics in advance.
Speaker 6: I think we should be, as elected officials, be able
Speaker 6: to answer the questions and to see, you know, sixty
Speaker 6: minutes do what they did and effectively alter the narratives.
Speaker 6: They are pushing narratives rather than reporting the facts. And
Speaker 6: that's that is a very frustrating thing as elected official tocy,
Speaker 6: especially when you're on the receiving end of it.
Speaker 2: Obviously, in the midst of swamp Watch, we have one
Speaker 2: of the members of Congress representing the state of California
Speaker 2: Kaise of course, Mike Garcia from the twenty seventh currently
Speaker 2: serving on the Committee on Appropriations, the Permanent Select Committee
Speaker 2: on Intelligence, Science, Base and Technology. But I want to
Speaker 2: ask you these questions because some of the stuff that's
Speaker 2: been going on, most recently hurricanes specifically, and because you
Speaker 2: know a lot about appropriations.
Speaker 3: What's going on with FEMA funding. I mean, there was an.
Speaker 2: Article today that suggested that because of the disasters, because
Speaker 2: of these hurricanes, we blew through eight days in eight days,
Speaker 2: about twelve months worth of funding. Does Congress have the
Speaker 2: ability to then replenish that account for FEMA?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we can come back and do what's called supplemental
Speaker 6: funding for agencies that see sort of anomalist demand in
Speaker 6: many cases. I actually just passed a supplemental bill for
Speaker 6: the VA about three weeks ago with bipartisan support, where
Speaker 6: the VA had run out of money because of higher
Speaker 6: benefit rates and more demand for because of the Packed Act,
Speaker 6: we had more veterans supplying. They were three billion dollars
Speaker 6: short on their budget, and so I led that bill
Speaker 6: on the floor, got it passed. President signed it in
Speaker 6: a law to his credit, within forty eight hours, and
Speaker 6: prevented our veterans from losing their pensions and their disability benefits,
Speaker 6: everything for several weeks. So when agencies do that, though,
Speaker 6: we can't just write the blank check. You've got to
Speaker 6: ask the why, right, Either they're forecasting incorrectly in terms
Speaker 6: of their budget needs, or they're executing the budgets that
Speaker 6: we're giving them incorrectly and inefficiently. In many cases, and
Speaker 6: that's the case with the VA, they knew that the
Speaker 6: demand was coming, they just weren't effectively using the money
Speaker 6: and spending it efficiently to make sure that the veterans
Speaker 6: were getting prioritized. In the case of FEMA, there are
Speaker 6: documented cases of FEMA using money for illegal immigrants. For instance,
Speaker 6: tens hundreds of millions of dollars being used to house
Speaker 6: illegal immigrants. And in some years there are more disasters
Speaker 6: than others. And when you have things the magnitude of
Speaker 6: Helene and Milton, it is an extra demand. So when
Speaker 6: we come back in session in November, we're going to
Speaker 6: be looking at it. What we're being told right now
Speaker 6: is FEMA does have enough money to service those in
Speaker 6: need in the immediate a few weeks, and if they
Speaker 6: need supplemental funding, we'll get them there. But this is
Speaker 6: why we need to make sure that we're not in
Speaker 6: moments of you know, non crisis eras not recklessly spending
Speaker 6: tax payer dollars so that we have the money available
Speaker 6: for the crisis situations like this.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of talk about and criticism from
Speaker 1: the right claiming that FEMA is sending you know, seven
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars per person to the hurricane disaster
Speaker 1: zone while they're sending billions abroad. But from what I understand,
Speaker 1: the seven hundred and fifty is separate from the more
Speaker 1: than one hundred million in need, and it's actually a
Speaker 1: good thing because they have more direct, immediate access to
Speaker 1: that money than in the past.
Speaker 6: Is that Yeah, And I think one of the senators
Speaker 6: who's also a Republican, did a good job of dispelling
Speaker 6: some of these myths and some of you bad information
Speaker 6: that's out there. The seven hundred and fifty dollars was
Speaker 6: just an initial check sent out to try to relieve
Speaker 6: some of the pressure. That's not going to be the
Speaker 6: last relief effort that goes out. So unfortunately, in this
Speaker 6: time of social media, you know, everyone gets their news
Speaker 6: from a headline or from you know, a post that
Speaker 6: comes from someone who's not credible. There's there's real news
Speaker 6: out there, and then there's a lot of misinformation disinformation,
Speaker 6: so all.
Speaker 1: Those but yeah, that President Trump was one of the
Speaker 1: people talking about that seven hundred and fifty number.
Speaker 4: So how do you how do you combat.
Speaker 6: That on I think as representatives, it's it's imperative that
Speaker 6: we make sure that if especially if it's our district affected,
Speaker 6: that we speak the truth right regardless of party affiliation.
Speaker 6: We we have a loyalty to the constitution. We have
Speaker 6: a loyalty to our constituents. Uh, and truth is what
Speaker 6: matters the most. People seek clarity. They just want to
Speaker 6: know clearly what's going on. They want answers, they want clarity,
Speaker 6: and elected officials have access to information and we get
Speaker 6: asked questions on a daily basis in our district about
Speaker 6: what's going on. You know, we've got an environmental disaster
Speaker 6: with Chiquita landfill going on right now. That's really hurting us.
Speaker 6: And I you know, I have been the conduit of
Speaker 6: just making sure that the constituents know what's happening there
Speaker 6: and hearing ground truth because it's very easy to run
Speaker 6: with conspiracy theories or any ideas that folks may have
Speaker 6: that all of a sudden, everyone starts believing it is
Speaker 6: true when it's not.
Speaker 2: I know, you're in the middle of campaign season, right now.
Speaker 2: But I have a semi trick question for you. Where
Speaker 2: do you come down on term limits? I support term limits.
Speaker 2: My number is twelve years.
Speaker 6: I think after twelve years, if you haven't done what
Speaker 6: you're supposed to do in the House, then then you're
Speaker 6: you're in the wrong business. I think, you know, And
Speaker 6: that's true for the Senate as well. So two terms
Speaker 6: in the Senate of six years and then six years
Speaker 6: of two year terms for the House. I think what
Speaker 6: happens is and by the way, I think every map
Speaker 6: should be drawn so that it's fifty to fifty or
Speaker 6: you know, you know, effectively equal party representation, so that
Speaker 6: every race and every district is competitive like mine is.
Speaker 6: I'm a Republican and a district with only twenty nine
Speaker 6: percent Republican registration. It forces me to work harder, It
Speaker 6: forces me to get smarter on the issues. It forces
Speaker 6: me to compromise and negotiate in the House right and
Speaker 6: actually come together with the opposite party when I'm in
Speaker 6: the minority especially, And I think we need.
Speaker 5: More of that.
Speaker 6: But these these these folkolks that rely on this for
Speaker 6: a thirty year, forty year career and come out wealthy
Speaker 6: on the backside. It's mind boggling to me that they
Speaker 6: do that. You know, John Adams was the second president,
Speaker 6: and when our founding fathers used to crave going back
Speaker 6: to the farm and actually stop having to do this
Speaker 6: type of work. And I'll serve my country in any
Speaker 6: capacity that's required. But I think we should not allow
Speaker 6: people to stay in office for longer than twelve years.
Speaker 1: You hit on a lot of important points during the
Speaker 1: last segment too. You talked about you think that we
Speaker 1: should have weaker parties, and that was something our founding
Speaker 1: fathers talked about, is that their fear was that the
Speaker 1: parties would get too strong. And that's what we're seeing,
Speaker 1: this bipolarization or this polarization between Republican Democrat. You can't
Speaker 1: even have a civil conversation anymore. I see that as
Speaker 1: one of the biggest threats to our democracy. Foreign actors,
Speaker 1: foreign adversaries are looking at us and celebrating how divided
Speaker 1: we are. We're imploding from within. So how do you
Speaker 1: address that and really put a dent in that issue
Speaker 1: to bring us back to the place where we could
Speaker 1: have civil discussions. I mean, today, even if people shake
Speaker 1: hands before a debate, we're like, oh, yeah, they can.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but there's still that some that judge. And you
Speaker 6: know when I do that, I still get the phone
Speaker 6: calls going out. How can you shake that guy's hand
Speaker 6: like you know, it's a it's frowned upon, right, So, uh,
Speaker 6: the reality is you do it by example. In my debates,
Speaker 6: I never get personal. I'm very direct. I can be
Speaker 6: aggressive when I need to be, but I think being civil,
Speaker 6: especially in these debates at town halls, when you know
Speaker 6: my town halls are four hours long.
Speaker 3: I listened to the questions.
Speaker 6: I treat the people asking the questions with great respect,
Speaker 6: and I answer in a manner that there's a tone
Speaker 6: in an attacked that you can take in a vernacular
Speaker 6: that you can use that actually, even though you disagree
Speaker 6: with them, they still end up, you know, uh, liking you, right,
Speaker 6: and that brings the temperature down. I think, I think
Speaker 6: if we just took a little more time to make
Speaker 6: sure that we weren't pissing people off while we were
Speaker 6: communicating our perspectives, and we were a little more sensitive
Speaker 6: to the fact that not everyone agrees with us. And frankly,
Speaker 6: social media incentivizes these politicians sometimes who think of themselves
Speaker 6: as actors or you know, sociallebrity figure celebrities, and it
Speaker 6: incentivizes them. Media, the media really large, not you guys obviously,
Speaker 6: but is incentivized to polarize. They make money to provide
Speaker 6: you know, brain candy to the voters and what they
Speaker 6: want to hear. So but yeah, their founding founders had
Speaker 6: it right that the two party system is probably one
Speaker 6: of the most toxic things that our country has right now.
Speaker 6: When you overlay social media on top of that, it's
Speaker 6: even tougher. But you do it by setting an example.
Speaker 6: You do it by recognizing that some people vote with
Speaker 6: their heart, some people.
Speaker 5: Vote with their mind.
Speaker 3: Neither one of them are wrong.
Speaker 6: It's just human nature and my job as an elected
Speaker 6: officials to get the people who disagree with me to
Speaker 6: understand the why. And when you do that, they end up,
Speaker 6: in many cases agreeing with you and.
Speaker 4: Being curious about one another.
Speaker 1: If we were you know, whenever I see someone who
Speaker 1: freaks me out or I kind of I feel like, ooh,
Speaker 1: I don't like that person, I actually kind of try
Speaker 1: to go up to them.
Speaker 3: And always take the meeting. Yeah, yeah, always takes a meeting.
Speaker 6: And again, in a competitive district, you have to take
Speaker 6: the meeting, right, so you're forced to hear the other
Speaker 6: perspectives and that's a good thing.
Speaker 3: Congressman, appreciate it. Thank you, Garyman to know you're busy.
Speaker 2: Congressman Mike Garcia from the twenty seventh District, It's time
Speaker 2: for tech talk.
Speaker 5: Good machines are getting smarter.
Speaker 7: This is tech Talk, brought to you my sky Net
Speaker 7: and Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 2: It's been a couple of weeks since we've been able
Speaker 2: to chat. But how you doing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm all right, thanks for having me back on
Speaker 7: and hello Christina.
Speaker 4: Hi, good to be with you. I'm excited to hear
Speaker 4: what you got for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Thanks, and give my best to my buddy Rich Demuro's sure,
Speaker 7: he's the tech guy KTLA and elsewhere and on and
Speaker 7: here on iHeart and KFI on Saturdays as well.
Speaker 4: He's everywhere now.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's the best, great guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So yeah, it's been obviously a couple of weeks since
Speaker 7: we've chatted. It's just been traveling and yeah, I mean
Speaker 7: I think those in southern California have done a little
Speaker 7: bit better over the last day compared to your other
Speaker 7: friends on the other side of the country, opposite side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but and this is something we've we've talked before
Speaker 2: post disaster about ways to make sure that you maintain
Speaker 2: in contact and for us in terms of constantly talking
Speaker 2: about earthquake preparation, this is something that we need to
Speaker 2: pay attention to. But it's using satellites potentially as an
Speaker 2: emergency way of contacting people using your cell phone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 7: So we saw this coming out of Hurricane Helene, where
Speaker 7: people were using the latest iPhone or the newest Android device.
Speaker 7: If the Wi Fi and cellular network is down, you
Speaker 7: can still send emergency messages over satellite and still free
Speaker 7: for another year or two. And so I'm referring to
Speaker 7: Apple's service called Emergency SOS. For those with a Pixel
Speaker 7: nine phone, which is the latest Google device, it's called
Speaker 7: Satellite SOS.
Speaker 3: The idea is the same.
Speaker 7: If you have no signal, or again, even if it's
Speaker 7: not a hurricane, if you're in SoCal and you're lost
Speaker 7: somewhere and you can't get a signal it happens, then
Speaker 7: what you can do is hold your phone up to
Speaker 7: the sky. It has to be in line in sight,
Speaker 7: line of sight with satellites, so no obstructions like trees
Speaker 7: or tall buildings and you'll you'll be able to not
Speaker 7: have a phone call or anything, but you can send messages.
Speaker 7: You just type in SOS where you type in nine
Speaker 7: to one one when you're in your messages app, and
Speaker 7: you're you're going to be able to send a message
Speaker 7: to either first responders or you know, the emergency services
Speaker 7: rather or if you have the latest iOS eighteen, the
Speaker 7: latest operating system update and one of the newer iPhones
Speaker 7: fourteen and newer, then you can actually message those on
Speaker 7: other phones as well, like your contacts if they don't
Speaker 7: have an iPhone by the way, then they'll just get
Speaker 7: it as an SMS like a text message. It takes
Speaker 7: about thirty seconds, but it goes through and you'll get
Speaker 7: a confirmation as well. So it's a great little sort
Speaker 7: of you know, emergency thing you can rely on in
Speaker 7: the event that cellular or Wi Fi is not available
Speaker 7: to you. And I know people use it also with
Speaker 7: you know, with the hurricane yesterday in Florida.
Speaker 3: We're living in Star Trek.
Speaker 1: Right now, we are, you know, my sister in law
Speaker 1: said she tried this, she's in Florida right now, in Orlando,
Speaker 1: and they actually lost cell service. She said she tried
Speaker 1: it yesterday to set up her phone because there's something
Speaker 1: you do where you swipe down the menu and she
Speaker 1: wasn't able to because of the cloud cover apparently. But
Speaker 1: is there do people have to also do something with
Speaker 1: swiping down the menu from the right top corner and
Speaker 1: kind of like opting into this or is it as
Speaker 1: simple as just sending the message as you said.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so if she's on iPhone sixteen, there's nothing you
Speaker 7: need to do. If you've got fourteen or fifteen, then
Speaker 7: you do need to go into the settings to set
Speaker 7: it up. It's just it's a one time thing. But yeah,
Speaker 7: you will need when you use it, you will need
Speaker 7: to have an unobstructed view of the sky. It's just
Speaker 7: like if you were using GPS excuse me for navigation,
Speaker 7: you know, or if you're listening to satellite radio and
Speaker 7: you go through a tunnel, it goes it goes out
Speaker 7: because it needs to chat with the satellites above the earth.
Speaker 7: So it's the same thing. But no, there's nothing that
Speaker 7: you should need to do in order to set it up.
Speaker 7: If you've got the iPhone sixteen, if it's fourteen or fifteen,
Speaker 7: then yeah, it's just a little thing. And then with Google.
Speaker 7: By the way, I'm glad you brought this up, Christina.
Speaker 7: You do have to fill out a very brief questionnaire
Speaker 7: and that's what gets sent to emergency services. So it's
Speaker 7: again you go into the Google Messages part of the phone. Yeah,
Speaker 7: if you need to do anything, you should do this obviously,
Speaker 7: well in advance, just in case you need it. It's
Speaker 7: kind of like crash detection. It should be ready to go.
Speaker 7: But yeah, there's I wrote a piece yesterday for USA
Speaker 7: Today on how to set up your device if it's
Speaker 7: not one of the newer ones, and you should be
Speaker 7: good to go.
Speaker 2: Hey, speaking of crash detection, we had a plane crash
Speaker 2: off of Catalina Island just a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2: That was they apparently were notified by some on the plane.
Speaker 2: Their cell phone detected that they were in what they
Speaker 2: believed was a collision. I mean, I don't know why
Speaker 2: the phone would know it was a plane crash versus
Speaker 2: a collision. Wow, And that's how they eventually found the
Speaker 2: records of the plane crash.
Speaker 1: The La County Search and Rescue Team has actually had
Speaker 1: a few times they've been able to rescue cars that
Speaker 1: have gone off the cliffs and some of the more
Speaker 1: rural parts of La County because of this exact setting too,
Speaker 1: So it's really making a difference in saving lives in
Speaker 1: many cases.
Speaker 7: On one hand, I know people are concerned about big Brother.
Speaker 7: Pardon me one second here, absolutely, yes, I know, right,
Speaker 7: clearly I need a little bit of H two here.
Speaker 5: But yeah.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 7: On one hand, I know people are concerned about our
Speaker 7: increasingly connected lives through our mobile devices primarily, but also
Speaker 7: wearables and stuff like that. But at the same time,
Speaker 7: it could be a lifesaver.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: It's like your smart watch knowing that there's some irregular
Speaker 7: heart rhythm or you know, something going on with you
Speaker 7: inside your body that you may otherwise not know about,
Speaker 7: or a phone detecting a car crash or you know.
Speaker 7: I mean it's pretty wild. I mean again, like any tech,
Speaker 7: it can be used or abused. And I know people
Speaker 7: are concerned, you know, the tin the tin hat, you know,
Speaker 7: tinfoil hat. Folks are not a fan of this, But yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm all for it. If it can save save lives
Speaker 7: during a hurricane or during a car accident or you know,
Speaker 7: cardiac event, bring it on.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So if you want to see that article Yeah, just
Speaker 7: google my name Mark Saltzman, Mark with a C, Saltsman
Speaker 7: with his Z and and the word and the words USA.
Speaker 7: Today you'll you'll see the article from yesterday. And yeah,
Speaker 7: it also has some other tips for emergency preparedness when
Speaker 7: it's tied to natural disasters, whether it's earthquakes or hurricanes,
Speaker 7: tornadoes and so on.
Speaker 3: Awesome, Mark, great to hear from me again.
Speaker 7: Yeah, likewise, thanks for having me on you.
Speaker 3: Thanks cheers. Guys.
Speaker 2: Make sure you follow Mark on x M A R
Speaker 2: C Underscore Saltsman and he's got great stuff on his
Speaker 2: feed there. Yesterday, we had the opportunity to talk with
Speaker 2: ABC's Jim Ryan, who decided that he was going to
Speaker 2: ride out the storm in his vehicle in a parking
Speaker 2: in Tampa. Jim, did the roof on your car get
Speaker 2: torn off by the winds?
Speaker 5: Like Christina?
Speaker 4: What tell me more about that? Are you okay?
Speaker 5: I'm fine. It's all contingent though, Gary. And with the
Speaker 5: if the power goes out where I am in the
Speaker 5: hotel or wherever I happen to me, where do I
Speaker 5: get power from the cigarette lighter in the car the
Speaker 5: power and go or plug it in there and then
Speaker 5: connect the satellite uplank, so that, you know, I can
Speaker 5: communicate with world that I need to communicate with. And
Speaker 5: but the power stayed onto the hotel, so I didn't
Speaker 5: have to do all that, which was kind of a
Speaker 5: nice change pace. So I stayed in the hotel upon
Speaker 5: the twelfth floor building was swaying back and forth in
Speaker 5: the at the height of the wind, rain is blowing
Speaker 5: around into the windows. It's so yeah, it was. I
Speaker 5: didn't have to spend it in the parking garage after all.
Speaker 1: Well, to your defense, as I have background as a
Speaker 1: journalist and we do tend to live out of our cars,
Speaker 1: and I almost find comfort in it.
Speaker 4: I must.
Speaker 5: You know, you're there is some sense of control. It's
Speaker 5: a little workspace, it is, that's true. But once you
Speaker 5: know where everything is and you can make it all work,
Speaker 5: it's not bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So did how high did those winds get?
Speaker 5: Ninety three miles an hour here at Tampa was the
Speaker 5: top sustained wind that they had here. The landfall came
Speaker 5: south of here, and that's where you had the Category
Speaker 5: three hurricane one hundred and twenty mile an hour winds.
Speaker 5: But here at Tampa it was ninety three and you know,
Speaker 5: a picture driving down the highway at ninety three miles
Speaker 5: an hour, it's sticking your arm out the window. That's
Speaker 5: a pretty substantial win.
Speaker 2: But a Governor DeSantis this morning, one of the early
Speaker 2: briefings that he gave, seemed a little bit relieved that
Speaker 2: things weren't quite as bad as predicted.
Speaker 5: Yes, the catastrophe scenario here would have been this. It
Speaker 5: would have been Hurricane Milton coming into Tampa Bay at
Speaker 5: a category three or a category four, and that storm
Speaker 5: searge pushing that water into the bay and out into
Speaker 5: the city of Tampa. This city would have been inundated
Speaker 5: had that happen. It would have been you know, twelve
Speaker 5: fifteen feet underwater, which would have been just horrific in
Speaker 5: a population this densely you constraint here. Thirty three million
Speaker 5: people live in this area here, and undoubtedly people did
Speaker 5: stay home instead of evacuating, so there may have been
Speaker 5: loss of light instead. The storm came in again south
Speaker 5: of here, Sarasota County, a little place called Siesta Key,
Speaker 5: which you know, and there was storm surge from it then,
Speaker 5: but you didn't have the bay filling up with water
Speaker 5: from the storm. Search And in fact, because the storm
Speaker 5: came in south of here, and because the storm rotates counterclockwise,
Speaker 5: water was actually pulled out of Tampa Bay. It lowered
Speaker 5: by about two feet in certain sections of it, so
Speaker 5: that you know, we had sort of a reverse storm
Speaker 5: surge here.
Speaker 3: In those pictures was the weirdest ones.
Speaker 1: What were your thoughts on? I know it was hard
Speaker 1: to found them. What were your thoughts on all the
Speaker 1: tornadic activity?
Speaker 5: It's shocking. I mean, I've been covering tornadoes and hurricanes
Speaker 5: and this stuff for over thirty years, and you always
Speaker 5: get tornadoes spinning off of hurricanes like this, but the
Speaker 5: number of them and the intensity of them this time
Speaker 5: is just shocking as far as we know, and only
Speaker 5: one hundred. Majorcas was talking about this a short time ago,
Speaker 5: laying out what he's been told by state officials here
Speaker 5: in Florida. Ten people have died as a result of
Speaker 5: Hurricane Milton. Storm search No flying debris, nope, cars getting
Speaker 5: hit by trees, no. All ten people, as far as
Speaker 5: we know, died in the tornadoes that were spun off
Speaker 5: of Hurricane Milton. All Right, get this these storms, I can't.
Speaker 5: We're talking about it because it's so weird. So the
Speaker 5: landfall came at Sarasota, Sarasota County. These tornadoes were being
Speaker 5: spun off a couple of hours before landfall one hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty miles away on the other side of the state,
Speaker 5: on the east coast of the state. That's where we
Speaker 5: had the most severe of the.
Speaker 1: Tornadoes, right which is so bizarre. I mean, they're probably thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's coming for us. It's going to make landfall, you know,
Speaker 1: after eight o'clock tonight. So I wonder if they were
Speaker 1: even anticipating having any sort of weather event that early.
Speaker 5: Well, they certainly weren't on the east coast right now
Speaker 5: on They weren't expecting March at all. This was a
Speaker 5: Gulf Coast hurricane. It was coming in from the west,
Speaker 5: and so we're fine over here. Right on the east coast,
Speaker 5: not so much. Storm cut right across one hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty miles to the northeast through Cape Canaveral and now
Speaker 5: has jumped off into the ocean. I think it's a
Speaker 5: post tropical cyclone at this point, but we still have
Speaker 5: three point two million power outages across the state.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, moving forward, I'm just curious
Speaker 1: what the future looks like because we talked about their
Speaker 1: destruction from Halleen that remains and I imagine we don't
Speaker 1: even know the full scope of destruction from this one yet.
Speaker 1: Even though it wasn't as we're as bad as we
Speaker 1: thought it would be. So what did the next few
Speaker 1: days look like?
Speaker 5: Well, getting the rest of the power put on you
Speaker 5: and getting the grid back up and running, and getting
Speaker 5: these three point two million homes and businesses back online.
Speaker 5: The number has dropped by several tens of thousands in
Speaker 5: the last few hours. That's good news because I mean
Speaker 5: the longer the power is out, the more people will
Speaker 5: be using generators, for example, firing those things up. Somebody's
Speaker 5: going to have one operating in the house or in
Speaker 5: the garage. There's going to be a carbon monoxide emergency,
Speaker 5: somebody's going to step in a puddle that has a
Speaker 5: live power line in it and get heard from that.
Speaker 5: So the sooner they can get power restored, the better.
Speaker 5: So that's why I so job one is to get
Speaker 5: the roads cleared so that you can get trucks in
Speaker 5: there and cruise in to restore the power. So once
Speaker 5: the debris is cleared away, then you get the power
Speaker 5: back on you get the infrastructure back up and running
Speaker 5: and get people back to work.
Speaker 3: Christina travel safe.
Speaker 5: Thanks Garret, You bet.
Speaker 3: ABC's Jim Ryan.
Speaker 2: They're live in Tampa with the latest on what's left
Speaker 2: after Hurricane Milton.
Speaker 3: You've been listening to They and Shannon Show.
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