Dan Mitchinson: US correspondent on Hurricane Melissa heading towards Cuba

Hurricane Melissa is moving towards eastern Cuba, weakening further to a category three storm.

The National Hurricane Center is still warning of powerful effects as it moves across Cuba and the Bahamas.

US correspondent Dan Mitchinson says the hurricane's hit Jamaica hard, with heavy rainfall and damaging winds impacting the area.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dan Meagens and US correspondence with US Elodn. Hi, Heather, Okay,
what's the latest from Hurricane Melissa.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Well, it looks like we're gonna have to update that
death toll from a three to seven right now, they're saying,
and the winds are about one hundred and thirty miles
an hour as it's heading towards Cuban. Like you mentioned,
it was a Category five storm. It had been downgraded
to a three. It is now back up to a four.
It looks like it could make landfall in the next
few hours, and the center is about one hundred and

(00:27):
ten miles southwest of Guantanamo. I gotta tell you this
is we haven't seen a storm like this since I
think the eighteen hundreds that have hit Jamaica right now,
and I mean the devastation. I mean, we're going to
know more in the morning, but I'll tell you it's
just awful. From the pictures that we're seeing.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
What are you saying?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I mean powers out, buildings destroyed, a flooding, landslides, trees
are down. TV reporters that are trying to do stand
ups like they always do in the center of these storms.
Are you just you can't see them because the rain
has just been so strong out there. I think they've
had something like maybe twenty inches of rain already in

(01:06):
the short period of time.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Wow, that sounds incredible. Now, how has the Bill Gates
comments gone down in your part of the world.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well, this is kind of interesting because you know, he's
been this big, sort of vocal proponent for reducing carbon emissions,
and he's saying, you know what, maybe we have to
turn our attention away from the battle against climate change instead.
He's saying that we need to invest in other things
like preventing disease and hunger. And you know, the Gates
Foundation has been doing that on and offer for a
number of years right now, but he said we should

(01:34):
deal with them in proportion to the suffering they cause.
And I think this caught a lot of people by
surprise because this has been something that Gates has been
pushing along with his ex wife for decades now. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
What's fascinating about it, though, is that this is, as
you say, somebody who has been pushing for a while
on climate change who is now saying enough is enough.
So what do you think happens?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
I don't know. I think that they're still going to
invest in this. I mean, this is going to be
a big contrast obviously from where he's been focusing his
efforts and his money to clean energy has been big.
I think he's going to maybe change the tone of
the Gates Foundation a little bit right now. I don't
think he'll back away completely from climate investment, but I
think he's going to probably maybe diversify would be the

(02:17):
best way to describe a lot of his resources. And
it sounds like more of his time and money too.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
It sounds like he has absolutely timed this deliberately ahead
of COP thirty.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Right you would think. So, Yeah, that's coming up in
about a week or so right now, and I think
that's going to be a topic of conversation that a
lot of countries are going to point at, especially those
who have been more for coal and oil as opposed
to wind and other natural forms of energy.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
What is the hold up with the book that's supposed
to be coming from Joe Bard Biden's old press sick.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Ah, Yes, Queen Jean Pierre, And you know what, I
wish I could explain this to you better, because you're
going to have to read the interview to do it
justice right now is come out with the the in
the Times. It went viral and nobody can actually figure
out what it is that she was actually seeing. It
was kind of a word salad. She was going back

(03:11):
and forth talking about the Biden White House and criticizing
the party's lack of strategy and leadership, and she said
it was definitely a party that she believed and she's
still aligned with, but she doesn't really doesn't like the
direction that it's it's currently in right now, which is
why she decided she was going to go independent. But
I'll tell you, I mean trying to paraphrase this thing.
It's it's really like a whiplash of answers and sentences

(03:35):
that just weren't really completed right now.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Okay, yep, I know the type. Dan. It's good to
talk to you. Thanks very much. Dan Mitchinson, now US correspondent.
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