Charles Feldman: US correspondent on the aftermath of Hurricane Milton

The cleanup is underway in Florida after Hurricane Milton.

At least 16 people have died, but Governor Ron DeSantis expects more casualties, while there were more than 100 Kiwis caught up in the storm, and left more than 3 million homes without power.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has lambasted Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for spreading misinformation about FEMA money in relation to Milton.

US correspondent Charles Feldman joined Francesca Rudkin.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
International Correspondence with ends and Eye Insurance, Peace of mind
for New Zealand business and joining me out out of
the US is Charles Fieldman. Good afternoon in Charles.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good afternoon in Francesca.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Tell me about the clean up it is on in Florida,
of course after Hurricane Milton.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, you know, as we just heard. Fortunately it wasn't
as dire situation as a lot of the folks that
were looking at this before it struck Florida were predicting.
And that's a good thing. But having said that, it
did cause quite a mess as it sort of marched through,
you know, that part of Florida near the Gulf coast.

(00:42):
Most of the damage was because of flooding, although there
was an expected surge in the Tampa Bay area that
did not happen. Fortunately that would have been absolutely catastrophic.
But there were nonetheless flooding in some other areas as
the hurricane diminished strength. But again, you know, moved through

(01:02):
Florida and eventually exited at the Atlantic Ocean. There were
some deaths reported, unfortunately not as many as initially feared,
and interestingly, most of them on the east coast of Florida,
and because of tornadoes, tornadoes that were formed as the

(01:22):
hurricane was actually approaching the west coast of Florida. So
that is what ended up happening. The governor of Florida
has said, you know that it is not as bad
a situation as they hope, but nonetheless it is going
to take quite some time to get homes rebuilt, to
get the water, you know, back to normal levels. Some

(01:43):
three million plus residents that should point out in that
state are still without electrical power because electric lines, of course,
were knocked down by either the winds or because of
the floods.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Charles Biden has lashed out at Trump's response to hurricanes.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yes, he has, I mean former President Trump has been
saying untruthfully. I should add that FEMA money. FEMA is
the federal agency here that basically supplies the personnel and
the money to help people in catastrophic situations like floods, hurricanes, earthquakes,

(02:23):
that sort of thing. Trump has been claiming that money
that should have gone to help people from this hurricane
Milton and the one that struck that area only a
couple of weeks back, lean that that money had been
diverted and it was being given to illegal immigrants. None
of that is true, by the way, And in fact,

(02:44):
there is money that's given to people who are immigrants
coming into the US, but it's a totally different pool
of money, so it has nothing to do with the
pot that's available to help people citizens when they have
catastrophic occurrences. So to sort of counter these untruths that
mister Trump has been saying at his campaign rallies, yeah,

(03:06):
Biden has said that that kind of talk is not helpful,
that it's patriotic, and at one point, I believe said
of Trump that he should get a life child.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Some good news in Colorado, where there's been this terrible
accident at a former gold mine that is now a
tourist attraction.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, there were twelve people who were just actually within
the past hour or so, rescued from that elevator. And
you're right, a lot of people may be baffled by
why people would be in an elevator one thousand feet
beneath the surface of the earth, and the reason is
that Colorado, the state of Colorado, is dotted with these

(03:49):
abandoned gold mines, most of which were founded back in
the eighteen hundreds. Well, of course, now, what do you
do with an abandoned gold mine. Well, you turned into
tourist attraction, and this was one of them. People go
for a one hour tour. Something happened to that elevator.
It is still unclear what exactly the nature of that

(04:11):
incident was, except that for several hours, about twelve people
were trapped. One person unfortunately died as a result of
this incident. But as you correctly point out, now everybody
is back on the surface, and my understanding is that
we're given a reward, if you want to call it,

(04:34):
that of pizza.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Just what you want to have to be trapped underground exactly?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
You want a pizza.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Thank you so much, Charles. Really nice to talk to you.
That was our UIs correspondent. For more from hither Duplassy
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