Rory O'Neill has the latest on Hurricane Melissa and the government shutdown

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining is Roy o'neiler, correspondent, following what's happening with Hurricane Melissa?
Sweet Melissa reminds me of the Almand Brothers song, but
this one is Melissa, a little mad, little mean. She's
ramping up. Now, Roy, how are we doing?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, well, Jamaica is not doing well at all. This
is a category five hurricane now with maximum sustained winds
of one hundred and sixty miles per hour. Who and
things are getting bad in Jamaica now as the storm approaches,
and we'll get worse tonight when it makes landfall. The
biggest issue is the fact that this storm is moving

(00:34):
so slowly. The latest update from the National Hurricane Center
puts its movement at three miles per hour, So this
thing is just going to sit on top of Jamaica
with those massive winds, that heavy rainfall and really could
decimate parts of the island. They say that the Hurricane
Center says that hurricane force winds extend thirty miles from

(00:55):
the center of the storm, so that means the diameter
is sixty miles at three miles an hour, dot, that's
twenty hours of hurricane force winds hitting some of these locations.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, you're right, devastation is imminent, there's no doubt about that.
What are the expectations after does move through Jamaica as
far as the United States is concerned.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, the storm luckily will not be making landfall in
the mainland US. The next concern though, is our soldiers
and sailors at Guantanamo Bay. They are in eastern Cuba.
That area would be next in the path of Melissa
as it moves north and then northeast, So that's one
of the areas to be concerned about. Of course, they're
used to dealing with this kind of stuff down there,

(01:36):
but still it's a lot of work, it's a lot
of anxiety, and it's a lot of danger. And from
that reminder that it's the water that mostly kills people
in these kinds of storms, and the aftermath can be
just as deadly as the storm itself.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, we can all certainly pray that the devastation is
minimal and what's going to be a pretty pretty bad
situation for those folks in Jamaica and on into q QBA.
Rather as you mentioned, all right, let's talk about what's
happening with the government shutdown. There will be another vote
today doesn't seem that they're any closer. But now the
President the USDA threatening to withhold billions of dollars and

(02:16):
SNAP contingency funding. You know what, I got to think
that my opinion SNAP program off the table, not a factor.
It should be funded just as much as our military
is during these types of situations when the government shuts down.
But I don't know if this is a chess play
to get the Democrats, you know, to come to the

(02:36):
table and be reasonable about this. But I'm anti cutting
the funding from SNAP. But what about the courts and
all of this? Where are we with that?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Well, there are some questions about some of the money
that's been moved around last minute. Remember at the middle
of the last month, or I guess the middle of
this month, we saw, oh, we're going to move eight
billion dollars from R and D at the Pentagon to
pay the soldiers. Well, I think we all said, great,
the soldiers should be paid. But that kind of maneuvering
isn't really allowed under law, in black and white law,

(03:05):
And that's maybe sort of what we're seeing again with
sort of this shuffling. No one wants to stand up
and object like Hey, you can't do that. But the
next time a president tries to pull it and you
don't like what their intention is, can you stop it?
Can Congress intervene? So you want to make sure that
there's some sort of a check and balance in that system.
There again, it's that whole idea of you you like

(03:26):
the outcome, but how you got there may not be
so great. So it's careful what you wish for.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, what about the situation as far as the vote
today goes, have you seen, heard, felt anything inside the
bellway that indicates that there may be some room to
get this thing going before the end of the month.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
No, not really, And what might happen Wednesday or Thursday
is a separate vote on separate issues that would pay
air traffic controllers and some others, maybe address this snap
benefit issue. Maybe then that could happen Wednesday Thursday. But
then you might need the House to get back into
session to approve any of this. So it's all a
bit tentative right now. Already this is the second longest

(04:05):
government closure on record. Once you go through this week,
it will set a new record.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Well, it's time to start to get this thing moving
in the right direction here, especially when it comes to
things like the Snap program. I've sent a message to
Senator Tarberville and Senator Bird as well with just my
concerns about the Snap program being affected by this and
so many people and kids especially too. Broy, thank you
so much. I appreciate you, buddy,