It's night Side, Dan Ray on Boston Radio.
Thank you very much, Sherry Small. Always great to hear your voice here on night side, as I often do, but we also hear throughout the work week. But it's always nice when you're leading us into our show, and of course leading us into our show on October seventh, which is a very important date on I think should be on everyone's calendar, a day of morning and a day of concern. We're going to talk about that in
a moment. We will talk about it at greater length later tonight with a gentleman here from the Boston area who had five relatives, five direct relatives kidnapped last October seventh. Two of those relatives were killed, two children were released, and a fifth remains in captivity. And my guest who will join us at ten o'clock be going to Israel on Thursday. And so just his name. He's an Attorney's name is Jason Greenberg, and he's an incredible individual and
you'll want to hear his story. We will talk at nine o'clock about the hearing in front of the Supreme Judicial Court today on the Massachusetts MBTA Communities Act. I think you know how I feel about that. But first we have four special guests, very special guests starting off the program this hour, Major General retired Robert D's. General D's get a chance to salute you here on night's side. Thank you for your service.
You, bed Dan. Great to be with you tonight.
Thank you very much. You are also in charge now of a center called the National Center for Healthy Veterans. I want to learn more about that. But I would be remiss, since you're the former command of the US Israeli Combined Task Force for Missile Defense, if I just didn't ask you a couple of questions about what's going on in the Middle East. First of all, the defense the Missile Defense Force forces in Israel performed magnificently the other night under that barrage of one hundred and eighty
ballistic missiles sent from Iran. Tell us about that system. It's a it's a dome that is over the nation of Israel. It cannot be guarantee because there were a few of those one hundred and eighty missiles that got through. But boy, why would Iran be so crazy to try this now a second time? A barrage of missiles and they probably had even less success this time than they did a few months ago when they tried the same thing.
Well, then I agree with you, it's and many of the Iranian missiles the first time failed and this time as well, so they've got quality control on their end. But what some people don't realize is the Israeli air defense is really an integrated air defense system. They've got a system they've had for a number of years called Arrow It reaches out and touches the longest range missiles
coming from places like Iran. And then the next thing they have is David Sling sort of an intermediate range missiles, and then the Iron Dome catches the shorter range missiles such as those coming out of Lebanon and Gaza Strip. And then the Israelis because of the high cost of AMMO on these things, you know, that's my only concern
about the Israeli air defense is the AMO supply. But they are developing because they're leaders in this technology, something called Iron Beam, which reaches out and touches these missiles with a laser beam. So the Israelis are the best in the world at this air defense, so assisted by the US in many ways. So there's also US Navy ships in the Mediterranean assystem relar air defense, and some US Air Force assets as well.
This beam defense and the iron dome really goes back to the genesis of what we were talking about, I think in the late eighties and early nineties sort of the Star Wars defense. Is that with some of these ideas first percolated.
Well, I can't say, but I think you're right. It's sort of a microcosm of the whole Star Wars concept.
Is that, Yeah, they literally put.
A dome over Israel, you know, with this integrated air defense.
It's pretty impressing.
I'm excited to hear about these laser beams. That would seem to me to be the next step. I'm not an expert in this by any by any matter of means, but having seen what Israel was able to do with the pagers and the cell phones two or three weeks ago for the Hesbala fighters who had those pages and cell phones in their pocket, much too the discomfort, I might add, Israel's pretty innovative, both with the defensive capable.
Well, they definitely are.
You know a lot of people, you know, they still are wondering why Israel was caught so flat footed with the Gaza attack and the massacre. That said, Israel is certainly on the front of its feet now because just two days ago went into Lebanon they found elaborate complex of hesblat tunnels, weaponry, even battle plans. And then both in Lebanon and in Gaza, all of these are not
what those surrogates have produced. That's all the money that we sent from the US through too Iran that has gone straight into digging tunnels, buying weapons, all that stuff, all that capability, as we have paid for with US funds.
Well, my last question on this general, and again if I ask a question that for whatever reason you kind of answered, don't hesitate to me. As if Israel is looking to go further here, and there's some suggestion that Israel may attempt to wipe out Iran's nuclear program, it sounds like a good idea to me as an American, that Iran would not have nuclear weapons. Do you think Israel will be that bold or do they have the capacity?
I understood that a lot of the Iranian nuclear weaponry and the development were in situations which were impermeable to missing missiles inside deep inside mountains. Do they have the capacity to do what maybe many of us would hope they would do.
Well, that's to be determined. I think they have the will to do it. Do they have the capability? The US developed bunker buster bombs that we have shared with Israel. One of the recent recently Kamala Harrison campaign said she would deny these MUNC robuster bombs to the nation of Israel because she didn't want the nuclear capability attacked. So it's obviously a political football right now.
But I think.
Israel is going to respond and probably with some deep strikes against not only nuclear but also energy, which will cripple them economically.
Yeah, and that might be probably the most effective method. So let's talk for a few minutes about the National Center for Healthy Veterans. Tell us about it. I'm familiar with many, many, many programs, and I'd love to know more about this.
Well kind of you to ask Dan. It's at Healthy Veterans dot org as the website. But we are somewhat unique because we represent i say, a crockpot in the Microwave Society. We're a nine month residential program. We house veterans in tiny homes and they have dignified work. A three hundred and fifty acre farm and ranch operation, and so forth they get Trump and recovering life skills programs and career prep. The whole purpose is to turn healthy
veterans to America. We bring in at risk veterans. Our veterans have given so much for us, and yet we sometimes just don't take them out from under bridges or help them as they transition out of prison. Or some of our guys could be fortune five hundred CEOs they're so talented. So we get to have a whole range from all across the United States.
We have a first village.
That is full with a waiting list, and we're building a second village of twenty five homes to expand our capacity. So we're always looking for people that need what we have. We need some good Boston or Massachusetts or North New England folks. We've had one from New Hampshire. I think that's all we have from New England. But we need people to refer veterans that are at risk and that we can help and then sec We always need ammunition ourselves to carry on work.
Where an ammunition in this case is not shewcasing. The ammunition here would be support we'll give that website again. But where are you physically located? Where's this three hundred and fifty acre.
We're located in south central Virginia and we're twelve miles from Lynchburg and Liberty University.
Now, I'm very much involved with a program out in Minnesota which is a model Veterans Court. I don't know if you're familiar with that or not. A friend of mine who was an assistant US attorney out there, guy named Hank Shea, got me involved in that a little bit of supporting it. There is a model Veterans Court in the state of Nebraska, and Minnesota has been the second state to develop this model Veterans court. I'm sure you probably have someone familiar with what I'm talking about.
Yes, I am, and we've worked with veterans court in the past. In fact, there have been some veterans that were on the wrong side of the law that were remanded to us instead of prison right and they've done well.
Actually, well, that's exactly what we're talking about. So tell us about how people here and not only in New England, but we're hearing about thirty eight states of this are other night. We're a big powerful fifty thousand ray am radio station. How did they get in touch? What's the website again for the National Center for Healthy Veterans.
You bad, Dan, It's Healthy Veterans dot org and there's a button at the very top says refer a veteran and they can go on there.
They can refer a veteran or they.
Can sell refer and that starts a series of phone interviews and applications. And we work very hard to make sure that a person is right for us and we're right for them, and things like FBI background checks, medical records, et cetera. But we want to know everything we can so we can best help them.
I'm also involved with a group called Hope for the Warriors. So you have a you have a supportive ear here, and I think you'll find a supportive audience. I really appreciate you taking the time tonight, Major General, and I thank you for doing the work you do, and it's it's really God's work. When I think what you're involved in, I just want to say thank you. On behalf all my listeners.
Well, thank you, Dan, I appreciate that. Great to be with you tonight and your listeners.
Okay, Well, we'll keep in touch with you. Maybe we'll have you on some night and go a little longer and take some phone calls from them from listeners. This is always a sort of a brief eight or nine minute interview, but I'm going to give this story a little like a good bottle of wine, an opportunity to pray a little bit more.
So we'll be back to you, kount like you've got a great show tonight. In the Boston Citizen, Jason Greenberg, that's that's a powerful story in itself.
It's an amazing story. It's an amazing story. And he's going back there again. His cousin, his first cousin is still hopefully alive, but you know, reportedly still being held captive. So we stay on a lot of this stuff. General. I appreciate it very much. Here again, thank you for your service, and thank you for what you're doing right now. Healthy Veterans dot Org.
You bet my friend, thank you, take care, thank you, good night.
When we get back, and to talk about some free bike rides as a result of shutdowns with the MBTA Orange Line, we'll explain it all with Jeff Bellows. He's the vice president of Corporate Citizenship in Public Affairs at Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Back in just a couple of minutes on Nightside. This is a Monday night edition. You're listening to us, we're live. I have to remind people, I should remind you more that this is a live talk show. In the first hour at sort of an
interview show. But after nine o'clock we will open up phone lines and give you an opportunity to participate in the conversation, whatever your point of view. Back on night Side right after this break.
Now back to Dan Ray Mine from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
But to welcome Jeff Bellows. He's vice president of Corporate Citizenship and Public Affairs. Boy, that's a big business card. That's a long title at Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Jeff, welcome to night said, how are you tonight, sir.
I'm doing fine. Dan, thank you so much for having me.
You're very welcome. So there's a little bit of a problem with the Orange line. It seemed like there's a bit of a problem with the Orange line all the time. But we'll leave that. But they're gonna have a little bit of a shutdown and Blue Cross Blue Shield has decided to help out you guys sponsored the Blue Bikes program, as I understand it, correct.
That is correct. We are the sponsor of the blue Bike program.
And I assume that's why Blue Cross Blue Shield it's called Blue Bikes. I get that.
Yeah, it changed. It was a hubway many years ago, and we took over in twenty eighteen, and as part of that, we rebranded the whole system and now it is Blue Bikes. And the bikes are a very vibrant blue. So I'm sure you you recognize them. I'm sure people recognize them throughout the city. And also thirteen municipalities across the Greater Boston region, so all.
Thirteen adjacent communities, is assume right.
That's correct, except for Salem. We have one one sort of outlier. Salem, Massachusetts has blue bikes as well, so they're not connected to the rest of the of the system, but they're still just as valuable and just as used up in Salem as they are in the rest of the system.
Now, I'm not a big Just for the record, you know I'm not a big bike rider. Okay, you know you know I've drive my car and I'm very careful to avoid any type of bike, although, of course, as there are more bike lanes and more blue bikes, it's a little bit more difficult to navigate by car. But so let's talk about what are you offering folks during this shutdown and how long does this offer last?
Sure, So Blue Cross is partnered up with the City of Boston to offer five free Blue bike unlocks during the Orange Line closure, which is from Tuesday, October eighth, tomorrow, starting tomorrow through Sunday, October twentieth. And there's a special code that riders can.
That's that's almost two weeks.
That's that's I know, it's go ahead ahead. It's a long time, I know it is. And we've been doing this for over a year now for all of the different you know, or for many of the different closures with the nbt A. So this one pertains as you as you said, with the Orange Line, So from October
eighth to the twentieth. And there's a code that that riders put into the Blue the Blue Bikes app and it's m bt A Orange O C T and they that's in the reward section of the Blue Bikes app and they will get five free Blue bike sessions to use during that time, and you don't and you don't need to be a resident of any of those cities in towns either, but you can use the code. Anyone can use the code, and the offer can be used across all of the municipalities that make up the Blue Bike system.
So even if you're visiting here and you're small enough to get the code and visiting here from Hawaii or Alaska, this Cross Blue Shield's going to take care of it. Now. You guys essentially are an insurance company. Have has this
program been successful? When it first started, I was concerned that a lot of people are going to jump on these bikes without any bike riding or little bike riding experience that I could see, you know, a family from somewhere flying down Beacon Street from Beacon Hill and disaster code en. So it's been run pretty safely.
Yes, very safe.
Yeah.
And it really is more focused on you know people you know, like teenagers and older, so it's not necessarily for young kids to be riding the bikes there. They're very sturdy bikes and are quite heavy, but so more for an adult. But our company's mission is really to show up for everyone, like they're the only one, and as a not for profit health plan, that means supporting our members, our customers, our clinical partners, our employees, and
our communities. And Blue Bike was just a natural fit for sponsorship as it increases access and accessibility throughout the Greater Boston region to biking, which also promotes like whole body health. So it was a really great opportunity for us, and it has been has been the best sponsorship that I think that we've ever done.
All Right, well, Jeff, I appreciate you explaining it. And people can take advantage of this from October eighth, which is tomorrow, through October the twelfth, which is twelve days away, and so they can they can have they can use get five free rise is what you said during that period of time.
Yeah, from October eighth to the twentieth. October eighth to the twentieth.
Yeah, could say the twelfth. I apologize it was I meant twelve days.
Twelve days, yeah, correct, twelve.
Days October eighth to the twentieth. All right, thank you very much, and a safe bike riding.
Okay, thanks, thank you.
I got to get you out on one of the bikes.
You know something you could probably get me to to convert to cannibalism before you could do that. I get I get my exercise. I'm a customer of Blue Cross, Blue Shield, very good to my shirts. But I get my exercise in the gym.
About five, oh, we got that. Well, maybe maybe we could we ease you in on an e bike.
I have no one. I don't even know what any bike is, to be really honest with you, And I like my car. I like my car, and I like my gym, and so.
All right, well, well I.
Wish your best. Yeah, that's that's important. Got to stay.
Healthy, tru That's right, Stay active and healthy. It's good for your mental, your mental and your physical health.
The doing this a long time. If you knew how long you've been doing this, Jeff, you'd be surprised. Thank you very.
Much, Dan, I really appreciate it. Have a good night.
I enjoyed the conversation. We get back. Remember that story we told you about a twenty six thousand dollars gold statue, Well it has been discovered and we have the creator of this treasure hunt, Jeff Roorer, with us. We had him on a week and a half ago, and I said, once day someone finds this, this gold statue worth twenty six thousand dollars, which was hidden somewhere in the woods of Massachusetts. And when you know, someone did find it
and they used their head to find it. We'll talk about it with Jason Rora right after this break on Nightside the News at the bottom of the hour.
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Well, about a week and a half ago, Jason Rorer, a New Hampshire game designer in the creator of Treasure Hunt, spent some time with us explaining to us what Project Skydrop was and he made a commitment, and a man of his words, he's returned once a winner found this twenty six thousand dollars beautiful. I don't know what you call it a golden vase. I mean, it's how have you described this, Jason, I forget what term you characterized it.
Yeah, I mean we've mostly just been calling it a treasure. It's it's a little bit like a chalice. It has multiple rings floating on a central spine. It doesn't really look like anything that's ever existed before.
It would have looked very nice, well, it would have looked lovely as a vase on my mantlepiece with some flowers.
Yeah. I mean it wouldn't hold a lot of though, because it's got a lot of intricacy to it.
It's not Oh, I didn't realize that, Okay, So as I understand it, Uh, you placed it in the woods in the favorite town name from Massachusetts, Irving, Massachusetts spelled within E E R V I N G.
Correct.
Yes, I think that's clear now from how a small circle is drinking. So it's not a It's not a secret anymore.
So who placed it in the woods? Did you place it there? Or did you?
I went with my creative partner, Tom Bailey, and then we had a journalist with us from Wired magazine, Joseph, who was blindfolded, so he tip made the entire trip from Dover, New Hampshire to Irving blindfolded in our land Cruiser, and he ate a subway sandwich on the side of the road blindfolded, hiked in about a mile up a pretty rocky trail blindfolded, and my twenty one year old son, Mez also came with us to help us carry some of the equipment and the cameras cross streets.
Son, you trusted your son right, I hope.
Yeah, he was not blindfolded. So there were three humans who knew where the treasure was and nobody else knew where it was.
Okay, so the winner now has been identified. When I first heard the story last week, and I was excited to hear about it because I knew you'd be back and join us. He apparently wanted inanimity, but he was found as well. Well, can you just I mean I had the guy's name in front of me. I guess.
I mean, the name has been in the name has been in the media, so I don't think we need to keep it a secret anymore. And he's a he's a local meteorologist. Uh, And so you know that the mystery is how he solved it. He solved it about two or three days early, I think, compared to anybody else. And and so you know, it's not like there were crowds of people about to get the treasure at the
moment he solved it. So he was using a lot of his meteorological knowledge and skill to track weather patterns, rain, rain, where it was raining on camera versus where it wasn't, and also where when the sun and sun versus the clouds were there was a live camera that he was looking at looking at the treasure, and he's paying attention to when the clouds passed over and when sun was visible,
and so he narrowed it down based on that. And then he also was the patterns of the tree where the trees were growing, because he knew the treasure was in a beech grove and there's not that many beach.
Grove It's not like It's not like this guy was moving from Kennett. I mean this area which you started off with was I think some five hundred miles across. It could have been anywhere in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York State. Was what was the geographic area that you said it could be?
Yeah, I was calling that the boss wash megalopolis. So it's the giant mega metropolitan area that includes Boston all the way down to Washington, d C. And all the big cities in between like New York and Baltimore, and a good portion of Pennsylvania all the way up into most of New York State. So a big circle. It was a big circle to start with.
Any circle is going to be found in America. That was a good thing.
Yes, Yes, it was the and on the east coast, on the northeast, somewhere in the north.
So, so did he spend his time out there in the wilderness checking this out? How did he spend a lot of time in front of the computer and narrowing it down before he went and started to look.
Yeah, so he was using mostly I think these patterns. So on a time when there was a live trail camera looking at the treasure and providing an image every fifteen minutes, and he'd look at that and he'd say, Aha, it's sunny in the image, and then he'd do a map of everywhere that was sunny and save that and then later on, you know, three hours later, be cloudy
in the image. Aha, do a map of everywhere was cloudy right now and kind of cross those and intersect those, and that would And he did that day after day after day for about five or six days, and that narrowed it down. It kept ruling out areas that weren't both cloudy and sunny across these different times that he was watching, and so that just kind of gave him the Swiss cheese map of where it could possibly be.
And then he also used some of the temperature data that was coming off the live camera to narrow it down even further given his temperature maps that he had as a meteorologist. After that, the circle had shrunken down to about thirty five miles or twenty five miles that included, you know, the Wendell State Forest and the Irving State Forest and a few other state forests in the area. He applied a Swiss cheese map to that circle and then was also looking for beach trees in those areas,
and they're just aren't that many beach trees. Most of the temlock in that area. So then he narrowed it down any further which places had sun and clouds at
these hours and also have beach trees. And then he literally just went and walked the beach groves for about two hours, just wandering around looking for In some of the clue images that were released, there were these crisscrossed logs, very distinctive logs, and so he was walking around looking for those logs, and then he found logs that looked correct and he actually almost stepped on the treasure, didn't see it, walked away thinking he must have the wrong
logs because the treasure is gold and it's sitting down among some golden leaves, you know, on the ground, and blends right in. It reflects the colors of the leaves around it. And he said he looked right through it. He just couldn't see it. It was like almost camouflaged, he said. And then he came back a few minutes later and looked at the spot again. These logs look so familiar, they looked just like the ones in the pictures. Has to be here, how could it not be here?
And then suddenly he was staring at what he thought was a patch of leaves, and suddenly the treasure piered. So it's a pretty crazy story. He almost walked away and left it. He would have seen himself on the dreilt camera when he got home, though.
Yeah, when you when you talk to him or whatever. Was he like in a general area and there were other people looking as well, or was he there by himself? And maybe you know.
Full fleet, but I mean he was not the only one in Wendell State Forest or in Irving State Forest in that area. I mean all those state forests, you know, even when the circle is quite a bit bigger state forest across Massachusetts were jammed I mean he was hearing from people from the DCR and so on who were like the forest rangers and like, oh yeah, parking lotter fall. So people are how.
Many people entered the search? I know there was a twenty dollars entry fee, correct, Yeah.
I think it was something like eighty seven hundred, so quite quite quite a number, and a majority of those were living inside the circle. A huge number of them were in the Boston area, in Connecticut and so on, as the circle shrank and was including those states. So we have we actually have a map on our website where you can see a sort of a heat map of where people have joined from, like a little doc for each person based on their zip code, only we
don't actually ten point each person. And it's a lot of fire right around Boston, a lot of fire around around the Connecticut area as well, a lot of those people are actually going into the woods themselves, right they were looking.
I just did some math on this, okay, So if you hit eighties, which just told me eighty seven hundred entrance at twenty bucks a pop, that's one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars an entrance fees. That's not bad. Do you do you make out a little bit with this as well.
I mean, well that's the that's the funny thing. Of course, half of that money, ten dollars from each entry fee, goes into this bounty. So that was eighty seven thousand dollars right there, and there's just Yeah.
The bounty is I guess it has to. That's a second portion of this besides the twenty six thousand dollar trophy. Explain what the bounty is.
Yeah, so this is you know, inten intended originally to be somewhat mysterious, although people are kind of baffled by it. But the treasure itself, if you of course, I've seen pictures of it, it's covered with mysterious writing. I guess a lot of people kind of figured out by looking at pictures that that mysterious writing must encode something, and other people just I don't know, I just thought it was decoration or something. So the treasure itself is a
two part decoding machine. It actually comes apart and reconfigures itself and spins around almost like a decoder ring, and that is instrumental for the winner who has the treasure to figure out how to recover the bounty. There's secrets encoded on the treasure about recovering that bounty.
So the bounty can only be recovered if you have the treasure. Who found it? I guess he now could if he wanted to get some people to help him on it.
If it's nothing, Yes, absolutely, yes, that was the idea, is like, what if the puzzle on the treasures do hard, Well, you recruit some friends and give them ten percent or something, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So either way you didn't lose money on this, which is you know, well, hold on.
A minute, hold on a hold of it twice, you know, we had twenty dollars on the gold.
Uh.
And then we made a video and that animated video, which I'm sure you've looked at on the website took hundreds of hours for a professional animator to make, so that was very expensive to make. And then, uh, you know what, our website so many people are visiting it and zooming in and out of the map. We were using a map service because you know, nobody gets maps away for free if you're not you know, don't if you have them on your own website for this kind
of thing. People in the first week hit fifteen million zoomable map tiles giving us a seven thousand dollars bill from our map hosting provider.
So there's a lot and just that waykay, without.
Text messages, right, So there's just a lot of happens.
I think i'm your friend here. I'm not trying to cross examine you here. It's going to be you're going to be lucky to break even here.
Oh absolutely no, we have. We've lost about six thousand dollars so far.
Okay, fine, but guess what you made it up in publicity. Look, I'm so happy you've been a great guest both times, and you've also been in good sport, which is even more important because I never would have found this. Okay. I stand in awe of the people who created Skydrop, yourself and others, and I stand in awe the fella who founded Dan Leonard and it was great for Nightside.
And I hope that maybe at some point some people actually heard about it on the program and decided to participate as a result of our first time.
Oh I'm sure they did. I'm sure they did. It's been a pleasure talking to you as well.
Sir, Thank you so much. Okay, we'll do it again. Thank you very much, Jason, appreciate it. Ye bye bye. Okay, So that was fun. That was fun. That is for sure. We get back when we talk about something that's not going to be fun at least the people of Florida, and that's Hurricane Milton, category five that's supposed to hit landfall maybe Wednesday night, Thursday morning. This on top of what they've gone through with Hurricane Helene down in that
section of the country. Tough. We're gonna be talking with a meteorologists for the National Weather Service right after this break here on Nightside.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the window World Nightside Studios. I' WBZ News Radio.
Welcome back everyone. You know, I believe in jinxs, so I don't want to jinx anything, but it's been a quiet hurricane season in our part of the country. Okay, However, that has not been the case in other parts of the country. Joining us now for the National Weather Service. Delighted to welcome Kevin Kadema to talk about what looks like a big storm, another big storm that's about to hit the Gulf Coast of Florida. Kevin Kadima, Welcome to Nightside. Thanks for joining us. Tonight. How are you.
Yeah, you're welcome.
So this is a big one. I mean, this is like the size of a Hurricane Sandy or Hurricane Katrina to give us a sense of how much damaged this one might do, particularly coming as it is on the heels of Hurricane Helene.
Yeah, so currently Milton is a Category five storm, packing winds of one hundred and eighty miles per hour. It's yeah, it has you know, intensified explosively, actually the third fastest intensification in the Atlantic basin since records have been kept. So, yeah, we're looking at a life threatening storm surge, potential destructive winds in the entire west coast of Florida. Should really
take this extremely seriously. Right now, the current track is kind of targeting the Tampa area, but you know, we're still a couple of days out and these things can shift a little bit. So anywhere really along the West coast, say from you know, north of Tampa to Fort Myers has to pay very close attention to this storm.
Tampa, as you know, has dodged a metaphorical weather bullet the last couple of years, and they have almost been as like bulletproof. But you guys that have listened to today seem to be pretty certain that that this is head to Tampa.
Yeah, right now, the latest track indications are that it's going to track very close to Tampa, you know, later Wednesday evening.
We have we have a major air force based down there, Medill McDill. Is there any concern of they're getting you know, military aircraft out of there in advance.
Of this, Yeah, I'm not. I'm not. I can't answer that, but I what I can say is that, you know, they certainly have to prepare for a catastrophic, life threatening storm surge, the category five storm, even if it weekends just to be we're looking at a ten to fifteen foot storm surge potential along and just to the south of the track in destructive winds. But that that storm surge is the is the deadly component to the these hurricanes going to take them extremely seriously.
I heard someone say tonight, I believe that even though it's now a hurry a five major major hurricane, I don't even know if it can ever get to a six. But that's I think that's the top of the scale, correct, A five?
Now, category category five is the top of the scale.
Okay, fine, Yeah, that's what I thought. So, but I'm told that when it hits land it probably will be reduced to a three. Is that the normal course when a hurricane comes in off the open ocean into land, that that kind of slows it down a little bit or or blunts the impact to somewhat.
Yeah.
These hurricanes get their their energy from the warm waters. So once they lose that that source of energy and they go over land with friction, they week and so the storm will weaken once it hits land. But you know, we're talking about a category five. You know, maybe you know, best case would be a four if it were to weaken just slightly before landfall. It's still a powerful, life
threatening storm. So you know, whether it's a five or four, it's not gonna not gonna matter too much because the storm surges.
Yeah.
Correct. So this would have formed somewhere off the coast of Africa or did it form elsewhere?
Now it formed It formed in the Gulf of Mexico.
Oh so this this is a homegrown one. Okay, So therefore this has not hit any of the Caribbean islands or Cuba. Uh now, so far has just been over the water. I guess it can brush up against Mexico, can't coon.
Right, Yeah, there, Mexico is in a in a hurricane warning currently. It's just north of the Mexico coast. It's going to stay. It's not going to make landfall in Mexico. It's going to stay just to the north and then get out over the over the open water again as it makes it refuelards the.
West coast of Florida.
Yeah, so far, Kevin, it seems to me that up until Helene, I know, the hurricane season technically runs from June first to November thirtieth, it almost had been a quiet hurricane season up until Helene and now Milton. Is that an accurate characterization.
Yeah, I would say so. It has been relatively quiet up to that point. But it only you know, it only takes one. Obviously, you know Helene was catastrophic, and you know Milton certainly has the potential to produce catastrophic damage as well.
Well. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed, and those who pray will pray a little bit for the people in Florida after it passes across Florida. My understanding is it is heading out to see not likely to turn up the coast towards US.
Correct, Yes, that is correct.
It's going to track eastward off the Florida coast and stay, you know, well to the south, actually probably weakening and dissipating south of so really pose this no threat to New England.
Thank you very much, Kevin. Never had you on the show before, but you were really good, very precise and very concise, and I thank you for your time tonight. Kevin Kadema of the National Weather Service talking about the arrival, the almost imminent arrival in Florida in the Tampa area of Hurricane Milton. Thanks, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Kevin.
Yeah, you're welcome, and thank you for having me.
You bet you. We'll have you back, all right. We're done. When we get back on the other side, we're going to talk about the the SJC hearing today dealing with the MBTA Communities Act. This is one that affects a lot of communities and a lot of people, and we'll get to it right after the nine o'clock news. Here on a Monday night edition of Nightside, Rob Brooks is back in the control room. He's a not alongside physically, but metaphorically back on nightside after this