In Wake Of Helene Preston's Visit With U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack

Members of Florida's 3rd Congressional District have a good one with Rep, Kat Cammack. Sad that our visit with her had to follow another storm smacking the region. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
No time to waste. Five past the hour, third hour
Here the Morning Show with Preston Scott. That is Jose
running the program in Studio one AM here in Study
one B. Great to have back with us. US Congresswoman
Kat Camick, Florida's third district, Cat, how are you good morning?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
We are tired, but we are. We're getting ready to
get back out on the road today.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah, tell us what you've seen in your district. The
impact of this storm across your entire district has been
pretty phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, it's pretty devastating for sure. This is the third
storm in thirteen months and pretty much that same path
where it comes in at the Taylor County Dixie County
line and representing Dixie's East. We tend to take the
dirty side of the storm, which is the tougher side

(01:00):
of the storm with higher winds and bigger storm surge.
So in places like Scene Hatchie, they saw an eighteen
foot storm surge in Horseshoe Beach, we saw fifteen feet
of storm surge in ceedar Key eleven feet of storm surge.
And even inland Jasper, Live Oak, you know that area, Mayo,

(01:23):
It's pretty devastating We're talking over one hundred pivots that
have just been mangled in the storm, Trees down on homes,
chicken houses that have collapsed, dairy barns that have collapsed.
It is truly catastrophic. And we've been out every single
day since the storm passed, and everywhere I go there

(01:44):
are people who don't have power, don't have water. It's
truly devastating, overwhelming, I would say, And you know, we're
used to be storms in Florida. I look to the north,
our friends in Georgia and the Carolina's in Tennessee, and
they got rocked very, very hard as well. So I'd
say the Southeast is in for a long road.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
What is the estimates that you're beginning to get kat
on recovery? And let's start with power.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
So I know that this is going to sound a
little silly, but I would put our utilities in our
line men and women up against really anyone in the nation.
Our folks, Duke, FP and L all of them. They
were pre stage with mutual aid in place, but the

(02:34):
storm was so significant that a lot of the substations
were damaged, right, So that tremendous work just to try
to get power back on, and there are still a
lot of people who don't have power back on right now.
I think we're in the ballpark of twenty to thirty
thousand in the district that don't have power right now.
So we're anticipating by tomorrow and Thursday we should have

(02:55):
pretty much everybody reconnected. Then it is a matter of
getting the utilities, the water back on. Places like cedar Key,
their list station and waste water went down immediately and
so that has there has to be extensive repairs on
those systems, so that's going to be a big thing.
We've been working with the state on the housing for

(03:17):
people who lost their homes or who suffer tremendous damage
and letting people know that those those RVs are coming
and we should be seeing those deployed here by the
end of the week. In terms of damage, the estimate,
we are still a ways out for really understanding the

(03:38):
depth of how much this is going to cost. I
can tell you from the ag standpoint, we're anticipating about
double what Idelia was, so we'll be probably pushing a
billion plus just in agricultural damage from infrastructure like fences
and packing houses to loss of livestock to of course

(04:00):
crops that are total law. It's gonna be tough, and
we've been on the phone. I spoke with the FEMA
administrator myself as well as this Undersecretary of USDA, and
we're working to get some waivers. There is some assistance
out there right now for people in certain counties that
FEMA they're eligible for FEMA assistants. But we're still working

(04:23):
to get other counties added that have kind of been forgotten,
and that's really a challenge working with the administration. But
so far, we're seeing an incredible all hands on deck
effort from nonprofit organizations, localities, mutual aid from other counties
around the state. There are strike teams coming in from Washington,

(04:46):
and of course the state has done a great job.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
She represents Florida's third congressional district US Congresswiman cat Camick
with US Kay, you mentioned the WAW I'm just curious,
let's set aside the the repairs that are needed. Is
the water supply based on the storm storm surge and
the flooding going to be safe for a while.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
I know a lot of people are under especially you
know from the water intrusion, the salt water. If you're
on a well and you're you're on the coast, you're
definitely going to have salt in your well water. And
then there's a lot of folks that are under a
boil notice advisory. So that's that's just something to be
mindful of. And that's why we always say please sign

(05:35):
up for your local advisories. You know, I'm in Alatua
County and I'm signed up for THEIRS as well as
a bunch of counties in my district. And they're very
good at putting out information that's real time rather than
waiting for the state or anyone else to put that
information out. And so if you're under a boil advisory,
you're gonna hear that, and you're going to want to

(05:55):
know that, of course. And and of course we've seen
from so many different directions these types of resources. So
people are getting pallettes and pallets of water delivered, and
then comfort stations have been set up in all of
these areas that have taken pretty substantial damage, So laundry showers,

(06:19):
they're set up in these communities all the way from
Taylor County, you know that Waculla le Fay at Dixie, Levy, Madison, Hamilton.
They're comfort stations established in every single one of these towns,
So people who don't have water, you can still do laundry,
you can still take showers, and for drinking water, all

(06:39):
of that is on the ground and ready to be provided.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Kat that brings me to an unsavory But it is
the biggest story going short of these recovery efforts, and
that is this this strike now along the East Coast
and the Gulf Coast with the ports, it will impact
recovery efforts, and it will do so in a dramatic way. First,

(07:02):
just your thoughts as a sitting member of Congress, and
it appears as though the President is unwilling to force
them back to work, and I think he ought to.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, you know, this has been something that just in
the last you know, twenty four hours, because I've pulled
my head up from disaster recovery, I realized last week
that this was something going on. Typically, it always comes
down to the eleventh hour and then one side caves
and everything goes fine. Now that we're officially in a strike,

(07:34):
you're one thousand percent right, We're going to be seeing
massive impacts to the supply chain across the East Coast
and the West coast ports. And also something that no
one's talking about is the impact that that's going to
have on our on our agriculture in this because forty
six percent of our ad products in the country are

(07:54):
exported out of East Coast ports, and that is going
to be an in credible hit to our local economies
and communities. So it's not just the price of everything
is going to skyrocket and you're going to see a
shortage in the stores, which by the way, this is
my psa. Go buy toilet paper and paper towel and

(08:14):
whatever you need now because who knows how long this
is going to go on. But this is exceptionally frustrating.
Americans across the country and every city, every community are hurting.
We are feeling the real inflationary effects of the Joe
Biden Kamala Harris regime. And if you look at if
you talk to folks, they say things are just too expensive.

(08:36):
We don't have enough money to make ends meet. When
you look at what these workers are making, they're on
average making one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year
plus forty thousand dollars in healthcare benefits and retirement benefits.
In many cases, these off workers are making more than
ninety percent of Americans. And I'm not saying that they

(08:57):
don't do a good job. I'm just saying that when
you compare it to what some other folks in the
country are making, it's tough. It's a tough pill to
swallow for sympathy. And you know, I approached this from
the standpoint of the wife of a first responder. I
watched my husband for years and years and years go
into burning buildings and not making mirror what these dockworkers

(09:19):
are making. Yep. And their union has just come to
an impact because the city doesn't want to agree to
a cost of living adjustment despite the fact that we're
under historic infallation. So my sympathy is running very, very
thin for folks like that, especially in the face of
a disaster like we just faced here in Florida and

(09:39):
of course in Georgia, Carolina's and Tennessee.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
USLA on your phone with the iHeart radio app and
on hundreds of devices like Alexa, Google Home, Xbox, and Sonos,
says Chrysler and Iheart's radio station. Final segment with US
Congresswoman kac Camick, Florida's third Congression will do district and
right in the middle of a lot of the damage

(10:03):
from Hurricane Leen Kat. I want to circle back to
this longshoreman's strike and the president's in action. What role
can Congress have in this, because I got to believe
this is one of those issues that cuts across party lines,
because there are a lot of Democrats and Republicans, you know,
a bunch of people up for reelection, everybody in the House.

(10:26):
And I'm not sure that Democrats can afford to let
this sit and go un you know, unattended, and let
this strike drag on in the.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Midst of all this. Yeah, I mean, and it's like
you said, you know, people in the country have already hurting.
People aren't paycheck to paycheck, their paycheck to Wednesday, and
they're borrowing the rest. And you know, it's one in
three Americans or behind on a utility bill. And then
you have the chief negotiator from the longshoremen come out
and say I will cripple you. I mean, come on,

(10:56):
Biden has every capability under the tes Hardly Act to
actually require them to go back to work. But I
don't think that he's going to because for them it's political.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
They've already seen where the Teamsters aren't going to endorse
for the first time in a couple of decades, and
so they're feeling like they can't rock the boat when
it comes to the unions. And so that just speaks
volumes in my opinion of Biden and Kamala Harris, who
are continually willing to let Americans suffer and put the

(11:30):
pain on the American people rather than risk a political
misstep in their mind. I think that this is going
to be actually, in the long run, very telling that
they did not force them to go back to work,
and it's going to hurt them more than help them.
Because Americans, it doesn't matter if you're Republican or Democrats,
everyone's going to be affected the same. And I can

(11:53):
tell you I know I am speaking to people around
the district, around the country. They're sick of this crap,
absolutely sick of this graph. So I think this is
going to backfire spectacularly.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
You know, I got a statement here that was sent
from the Florida Ports Council and they talked about some
of the areas that are going to be impacted here
in Florida, and you mentioned agriculture, but we're talking pharmaceuticals,
we're talking about consumables. We're talking I mean, when moms
that have babies can't find the diapers, and they can't
get the formula, and they can't get as you mentioned,

(12:24):
the paper towels and the toilet paper, and the people
that are on medicines can't get those medicines. That totally
transforms this issue and it becomes now a main street issue,
not a dock and a coastal issue.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
M You're one hundred percent right, I mean, and this
is going to one hundred percent expose the dangerous underbelly
of having all of your critical elements of your economy offshore.
When ninety eight percent of all of our pharmaceutical compounding
and taking place in mainline China, people are going to
start panicking really really fast. When we are so we're

(13:00):
not able to sustain ourselves here in the United States
and you're not able to bring things in the ports,
people are going to start panicking very very quickly. So
I think that this is the October surprise. I don't
think it's even surprise. I think they're just going to
say this is October chaos leading into the election. Yep. Again,
we're not surprised that Biden's not doing much because as

(13:23):
we speak, while we have millions of people without power,
multiple states affected in a massive emergency, he's on the beach.
He's on the beach getting his hand. So no one's
surprised by this. But I think again it comes back
to they don't want to rock the boat with the unions.
That's why they're not going to invote them to come

(13:45):
back and force them. So that's going to be an
interesting thing to see how this plays out in the
next few weeks. But I give it until the end
of the week when people start panicking, then you're going
to start seeing action.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Do you expect conversations between Mike Johnson and Chuck Schumer
to take place from quickly on this issue?

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, I mean we're are. There's already discussions about a
disaster supplemental because there's just Congress has not done its job,
and when you operate under crs, which are total nonsense, yep,
and you're not going to be able to meet the
needs of what is actually happening in the nation. So
I think there's already a conversation happening. I think that

(14:25):
that will continue to happen and we may see Congress
called back.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
And for the lay people out there, when when congress
Woman Camick refers to CRS, she's talking about continuous ridiculousness,
Congresswoman is always you're the best. Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Appreciate you guys, Thanks so much, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Congress Woman Cat Camick with us this morning here on
the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Always a candid conversation.
I call them cat calls. She's she's a delight and
kind of a no nonsense. If you look up her lifestyle, worrying, yeah, yeah,

(15:03):
you'll understand. Twenty seven past the hour