Hurricane Isaias Whips Through the South

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President Trump declares a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. But no one seems to have told them. President Trump, in some senses, is just trying to will this ceasefire into existence. Despite American pleas to save their oil, they're still hitting each other's energy supplies. And is it time to start nailing down everything in Europe? In law enforcement now, they're calling this the Louvre effect or the contagion effect. Another brazen heist, and this time it'll be easy to destroy the evidence. Just drink it. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Brad Milkey. When people in the American South found out the name of the storm heading up toward the Gulf Coast, some kind of blinked, confused, as it became a Category 2 hurricane named Isaias. If you speak Spanish or Portuguese, you know Isaias is a very common translation of Isaiah. But some government officials got tripped up, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. I don't know how to pronounce this because it's not normal. So, you know, I'm calling it Isaiah. You guys can call it what you want. I know that's not how you pronounce this. It's something else, but it's weird. Well, this morning, everyone along the Gulf Coast knows the name of this storm. Because after it made landfall in Florida and Alabama, it left a trail of destruction and close to a million Americans without power. Let's take you straight there this morning. ABC's meteorologist Leslie Lopez has been on the scene all weekend. She is in Florida right now, which is right where the storm came ashore. Leslie, you've been surveying damage. What have you been seeing? I mean, it's been pretty incredible. We've been traveling up and down. Down the Gulf Coast. We started in New Orleans. We made our way through Mississippi, Alabama, then through Florida. And what we've noticed is just the wind field associated with this hurricane was really strong. Even on the weaker side of the storm system, we were getting about 40 mile per hour wind gusts, maybe even 50 at times. We were clocking that. And then over on the what we call the dirtier side, the stronger side, that left-hand side of the storm system, there were reports of 90 mile per hour wind gusts. It sounded like a freight train. It was so loud. And even the sound is almost undescribable. When I look at the wind field associated with this, we are seeing so many downed trees. I did get to go up with the Coast Guard helicopter. We went towards Pensacola, where we knew we were going to see some damage to buildings. We saw many fences just strewn across the area. We saw rooftops blown off. We saw not only that, capsized boats. There were quite a few that just snapped from their buoys and they were just sinking. A lot of these boats have been protected with the barrier reef. And unfortunately, we're looking at quite a few that got ripped from their buoys and drifted away and unfortunately are submerged. So there's a lot going on in this area. But I would say in Pensacola specifically, the biggest cleanup here is trees. They're everywhere bringing down power poles. So it does look like the effort to get power restored is going to take a while. And I think there are now at least four deaths now. Do we know how most of them are happening? You know, unfortunately, yes, there have been deaths. And related to trees coming down, at least two deaths reported because a tree came down into a home. One individual in Escambia County had a tree fall on his home and tragically was killed. Very sad to hear that. Unfortunately, now that is the new update. And walk us through the power situation, because it did sound like very quickly hundreds of thousands of people lost power. How has that played out? I mean, you can see why. There are so many enormous trees, especially out through Pensacola. A few trees down, the electricity went out. It's remarkable to see the effort in trying to get these roadways cleared, but many roadways still blocked, many power lines still affected. So this could take quite some time. Last question. I mean, at this point, the storm's been downgraded, I believe, right, to a post-tropical cyclone. I mean, where is that going? And what does that mean for those people in areas where it's still yet to hit? You know, interestingly, yesterday we were seeing tornadoes. Tornado watches still through areas closer towards the Carolinas. And now it is really losing a lot of its energy. However, still bringing with it flood threats. Then it goes out towards the northeast, bringing with it rainfall. But it will start to move out towards the coast. And then, you know, by today, we're going to expect to see that most of this is done and over with. It did pack in a punch for a large area of the United States. Well, yeah, and I think worth noting, you had sort of pointed this out a while ago, because of El Nino patterns, we're actually seeing stronger weather in the Pacific, which, by the way, there's currently a big storm playing out in Southern California with high surf and flooding, but then almost a weaker hurricane season in the Gulf area. And so for a lot of Americans in the southeast, this is the first real taste of big-time hurricane action this fall. Leslie Lopez, there on the ground. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Next up on Start Here, Americans are getting sick of spending so much on oil, and President Trump knows it. But did that fact just alter the state of war in Ukraine? We're back in a bit. This show is sponsored by NetSuite. There's no doubt about it anymore. AI is changing the way businesses get work done. So companies need software that understands that. 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Meanwhile, further east, Russia has been absolutely pummeling Ukraine. Now, it would be tempting to think that these wars, Iran and Russia, have nothing to do with each other, but that would be a mistake. You see, in the Iran war, the losses that continue to pile up are not just American lives, it's also American dollars, right? Shipping is tough for oil. Oil is more scarce. Prices keep going up. The price of diesel, which powers virtually every truck in this country, has hit new record highs. Well, you know who has a lot of oil? Russia. Recently, in a dramatic reversal of his previous positions, President Trump announced that the U.S. would be relaxing its sanctions on Russia, specifically so we can buy oil from them. But that hasn't necessarily done the trick, because Russia and Ukraine continue to try to blow up each other's oil supply, which led to a controversial announcement this weekend about a so-called energy ceasefire. Let's go to ABC's foreign correspondent, Patrick Rievel, who's covered Russia for years. Patrick, first off, can you walk us through this deal that really centered around diesel fuel? Yeah, Brad, so this announcement from President Trump at the end of the week really blindsided both Ukraine and European allies where he announced that he was suddenly easing sanctions on Russian diesel, and that Russia had agreed, that Vladimir Putin had agreed to begin supplying hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel to the U.S. oil for the world and this is diesel which is what we need so we're very happy to get it and this immediately became highly controversial both in europe and increasingly in the u.s among congressional figures because throughout this war sanctions on russia's energy infrastructure has been crucial to maintaining pressure and by the way one thing that president trump has said throughout this war as well is that he's accused rightly european allies of continuing to buy russian oil and funding the russian war machine and now of course the u.s is potentially poised to do exactly the same thing oil prices are already dropping like a rock so we're very happy to get it but there really is a lot going on in this deal and the first thing to say about it is while president trump is saying it's a huge deal and that it will bring down prices because of the iran in reality most experts say that the amount of diesel that russia is promising to export is not that much and certainly not enough to meaningfully change prices for example the amount that that they have promised initially is less far less than a single day's use of diesel in the u.s the second reason this matters is that in reality russia hasn't been exporting diesel because ukraine has been hitting its oil refineries so hard for the past year that it's suffering severely shortages domestically it's unable to export diesel because it would create a major shortage in its own country and so immediately after president trump announced this deal he started demanding something that he's demanded before which is that ukraine stop its campaign against these russian refineries do whatever you want but don't hit the diesel fuel because there's a big problem big shortage and what does he do he goes and hits the diesel fuel he can do whatever he wants but he can't do that and this campaign that's been going on for about a year and has been escalating more and more uses these domestically produced ukrainian drones and has become one of ukraine's most effective weapons against vladimir putin it's inflicting significant economic pain on the russians it's bringing the war home to russians in the way that they've never felt throughout this and the ukrainians know this and see this and so i'm absolutely opposed to halting it i think because right when we we do this deal with russia so that we can do this deal with ukraine we can theoretically buy their oil and that then we turn around and say like okay ukraine you got to stop bombing their oil then like we're looking to buy it now exactly that's exactly what the trump administration is saying but i think there is something else in many ways that's going on here and the truth is what we've seen throughout the war since president trump came back for his second term is that he has frequently tried to turn the pressure much more onto ukraine than onto russia he could have settled this war many times many many times and he chooses not to we saw this early on we had that famous blow up in the white house where president zelensky was essentially thrown out of the office for saying uh for not saying thank you and at the time president trump cut off intelligence uh to ukraine for a time we're seeing the same dynamic play out again now we've heard from sources that in talks uh u.s officials have raised the prospect of potentially cutting off intelligence against ukraine if they don't stop these strikes and then what we saw over the weekend is after this diesel deal was announced and it was condemned very strongly by zelensky we heard president trump come out and say again for the first time in a long time that he needs to go i suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals that for some reason he'd ever done what we're seeing right now appears to be a major crisis in relations between the u.s government and the state government and the united states as well as the united states as well as the united states as well as the united states between the trump administration and ukraine once again but like was there an actual diplomatic agreement here between the ukrainians and the russians or is this just president trump saying it i guess how is it playing out of the ground now early on sunday morning abc was interviewing vladimir zelensky president zelensky and i was involved in that and we were listening to him give this interview you've called it a birthday gift to putin explain why because it was putin money and he spends money he was being asked by our colleague john carl about whether he would agree to stop striking russian oil refineries we are ready to begin from any kind of steps of de-escalation we are ready for energy ceasefire not to attack energy both sides and about an hour less than an hour perhaps president trump then abruptly announced on social media that a energy ceasefire had been agreed by both sides and that it was effective immediately and then what became even stranger is that immediately we heard from zelensky's office that they had no idea that was coming and that they had learned about that through social media we've also heard nothing from the russians so it seems increasingly that president trump in some senses is just trying to will this ceasefire into existence we um in you know both sides seem to have been caught off guard by it and at the moment president zelensky quickly said well it's not going to happen it's not going to happen it's not going to happen it's not going to happen if this is the case i'm very happy to do it if the russians are we still haven't heard from the russians but what we have seen since the ceasefire was announced is that the russians have started attacking ukrainian energy infrastructure again a power station was hit in kharkiv repeatedly and so at the moment and we've seen this actually throughout the war again from president trump he will just declare that the two sides are ready to make peace and that a deal is close when in reality there's no sign that a deal is close and actually president putin all signs are that he's escalating the war and is and believes uh that he increasingly has president trump on his side i think what we're also going to see next is that president trump we're already seeing him say it publicly is going to push the blame for the war once more onto president zelensky he's already pushing the blame for the oil crisis onto ukraine insisting that they are to blame and not the war in iran which has to be said is not true the ukrainian strikes absolutely contribute to higher prices but nothing can be done about it right that's the thing president trump gets elected he gets frustrated with ukraine with the war and how it's kind of politically becoming difficult it gets less politically difficult because ukraine starts doing better than a different war starts in iran that is becoming very politically inconvenient for him that the war i mean he started it but now it's very much kind of becoming this economic quagmire and so now you got the white house telling ukraine like hey we got to end this war so that we don't hurt as much from the other war like it's complicated but you can also see how they are playing off each other patrick rievel thank you so much thanks brad okay one more quick break when we come back this next story's got legs one last thing is next this show is sponsored by coligard plus let's start with the fact that's not very fun did you know colon cancer is america's number two cancer-related killer that's why screening for colon cancer is widely recommended for adults ages 45 and up but despite that more than 60 million 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i know you've got a curious mind here's a helpful fact you might not know yet drivers who switch and save with progressive save over nine hundred dollars on average pop over to progressive.com answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by in fact 99 of their auto customers earn at least one discount visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of 946 by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive between june 2024 and may 2025 potential savings will vary and one last thing wine needs time and air to breathe but you don't want to give it this much space on friday police in italy announced a crime that did not pass the smell test someone had successfully stolen 30 000 bottles of vino from a winery in tuscany several men apparently broke into this huge warehouse right before one of the biggest exports of the year and spent three hours hauling away these bottles that often retail for up to 500 bucks altogether this batch was worth five million euros almost six million dollars do you enjoy a nice italian red wine like have you been personally affected by this i had my chianti on friday night so i'm very i'm very hopeful that the italian police and intelligence services can track this down before i go back for my next trip that's former fbi special agent richard frankl now an abc news contributor he says there's a strong possibility this was an inside job there were seven people who did it uh and they were able to turn off all surveillance and security apparatus before they actually broke into the into the uh vineyard or into the storerooms where the wine was being kept So the fact that they were able to do that either shows that they are very good at what they do and or they had help in doing it. But whatever happened here, it's uncorked a larger question. Why is this type of thing seemingly happening in Europe so often? And what that basically is, is where the thieves who stole the French crown jewels from the Louvre in Bordeaux, it made it look so easy that it has now inspired others to do it. In just the last year, we have seen brazen thieves steal jewels, art, gold and a famous book cover designed by Salvador Dali. But they're not just knocking over museums. They're also targeting commercial shipments. This past March, thieves pretending to be cops pulled over a Nestle truck. Also, they could steal packages of specialty Kit Kat bars shaped like raccoons. Rich says this almost looks like a return to times gone by. When I was in the FBI, the big thing was cigarettes. They were stealing cigarettes back and forth from Italy to Croatia to, you know, other parts of Eastern Europe. These heists of cigarettes were happening all the time. It's still unclear who's behind most of these crimes. Rich believes now, like then, it's likely the work of organized crime syndicates. European authorities, he says, have become slightly complacent about the. Various mafias in the area, but now they're cracking down in a similar way to what we saw in the States in the 1990s. And now with Interpol, you know, getting more involved, Europol getting more involved. The Italians are working with all the different agencies, but they're looking at it the way we did. In other words, RICO, racketeering, influence corrupt organizations. That, he says, means rolling up soldiers to get to the capos, to get to the kingpins. Not by staking out every small scale operation, but relying on paper trails and witnesses. Until then, he says, the methods will look familiar. Generally, the mob, whether it's the Italian mob, the Russian mob, or newer criminal enterprises from Africa and Asia, get word of an extra big shipment, they boost the merchandise, then sell it on the black market. Which means, if you run a restaurant and you get offered a case of suspiciously well-priced guado al taso, beware of the bouquet of crime. Authorities will be taking an extra long sniff. By the way, you want to talk about the Louvre effect? The podcast has an entire podcast specifically about that case. Episode 3 just dropped, it's hosted by the incredible James Longman, just search "Heist at the Louvre" wherever you're listening right now. I'm Brad Milkey, I'm off tomorrow because I'll actually be accepting our Edward R. Murrow awards that, no, we are not excited about at all. I did not practice tying my bow tie all weekend long, so I'm playing it cool. I'll see you later. Subtitles by the Amara.org community This show is sponsored by Progressive Insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Price & Coverage Match Limited by State Law. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to Progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit Progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.