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