IN YOUR BACKYARD: Extreme Weather is Only Getting WORSE

This is Brett Myselis with the Midas Touch Podcast and welcome to episode two of In Your Backyard. In case this is your first time catching the show, this is the latest show on the Midas Touch Network. And every two weeks, so every other Thursday, we're going to be unpacking how public policy and political failings are playing out in communities across the country as it relates to climate issues. And you know that these issues are near and dear to my heart. Midas Touch host Lou Gradle, chats with experts, candidates, elected officials and the real people who are experiencing the very real consequences and fighting back. In episode one, which you could find on the Midas Touch Podcast feed and on our sub-stack at MidasPlus.com, we took a deep dive into data centers on this episode. It's a scientific fact that our weather is getting more extreme. Storms are getting stronger. Temperature swings are wilder. This summer set records as the hottest in the history of the United States. But behind the statistics and scientific patterns are human stories about people whose lives have already been upended by extreme weather events and the turmoil that follows. Luke talk with the resident of Gary Indiana, who lost power for half a month this summer, then he connected with a man who lost his home and his sister in last year's devastating wildfires in Southern California. How do we recover, rebuild or prepare? What are people across the country and the world up against? And most importantly, what can we do about it? Luke sought answers from a meteorologist in South Florida who has been warning us about climate field extreme weather for years. We want to know what you think how have your community has been weathering the summer of extremes and let us know what you're seeing in your backyard that you'd like covered in upcoming episodes. Without further ado, here's episode two of In Your Backyard with Luke Radill. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to episode two of In Your Backyard. I'm your host, Luke Radill. And is it just me or does it feel like we're experiencing a lot more extreme weather events from my background and local news. I felt like we'd often be talking more each and every week, each and every year about these thousand year, 500 year floods, things are getting worse out there. The sciences showed us that. And we've seen the headlines just over the past few months, the flash floods ripping through the Grand Canyon and a Dorecha storm that knocked out power and Gary Indiana for weeks. I know we've seen a lot of comments from you about that story. And that's why we're going to focus on it today. We're going to focus on the extreme weather that we've been experiencing across the country. We have set records for the hottest summer in the history of the United States and communities across America are bracing for what kind of weather the El Nino could bring in the next few months. On top of all of that, on top of the scientific realities we have to deal with, there are also the political realities. We're living in a post-dove era where cuts have been made to programs that were once considered a political and essential hurricane, a tornado, an extreme weather event doesn't care whether you voted for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the last election. All of those communities, whether you voted for the president or not, are being impacted by the cuts that we've seen to the National Weather Service and to FEMA. People who need aid after disasters aren't getting what they would have normally gotten in the aftermath. And it has many meteorologists flying blind in terms of providing warnings and delivering relief to folks in dire need. So today, we're going to hear from those who've already experienced in their communities what that has meant for them, what living under this second Trump term in this post-dove world has meant. And we're also going to hear from an expert meteorologist about why the weather seems to have been going so crazy and why it's even harder than usual thanks to the president and his administration to predict what's going to happen next. This is in your backyard. As I mentioned before, we have received a lot of feedback from you asking us to talk about what's been happening in Gary, Indiana. There has been a lack of news coverage and attention by the national media and by our federal government on what's happening there and it speaks to so many of the divides and issues that we've been dealing with in this country for decades. Power was finally restored to that community just last month, but the freakish storm that ripped through Indiana and parts of Illinois revealed a lot about how fast extreme weather can get out of control and create nightmare scenarios for people in its path. And also the unfortunate, but all to real disparities and how different communities are able to recover. I talked with Aja Bridges, who lives in Gary, Indiana and scrambled not just to keep her family safe during the blackout, but also to keep them fed here is some of my conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today on in your backyard. I was hoping that you could share with folks watching where you're from and what you've been going through over the past month now. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Aja. I am here in Gary, Indiana. The past month to say the lease has been somewhat catastrophic around August 11. We were hit with a massive tornado that essentially knocked out all of our electricity and the issue surrounding infrastructure and nipsco and everything else has just been a handful. We have literally just been maintaining and getting by. I know a big issue was groceries, support, getting access to electricity was number one and we were in the dark for two weeks. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Talk a little bit about the needs that you guys still have now on the ground. There's been a lot of reporting about a shortage of food in Gary. Is that something that you've been experiencing? As a resident, yes. I know that we live in a food desert, meaning we don't have any major grocery stores. We don't have a Walmart. We don't have any of that. We just have one local grocery store and it's not the best. It's not great. I do know that issue surrounding food is one of the biggest problems right now, especially because our outage just haven't stopped. At any moment's notice, our lights will go right back out and they'll be out for a day or two days. I know keeping food in the refrigerator has been extremely hard. It's traumatic to say the least to not know when you're going to have to turn around and throw groceries you just purchased away. We're trying our best to stay positive and to keep groceries and food on the table. In terms of keeping everybody in your house fed, you have two children. How has that been working for you guys as a family, making sure that folks are getting enough food to eat? I know that I have a specific circumstance because my daughter is a picky eater. She's autistic so she has to have her normal foods, her safe foods. It's just been extremely difficult to get her back on track. I know during the blackout, we depend a lot on fast food, which is not my priority or my children's. They're used to a home cook meal. I know we've had enough to eat, but we have to travel pretty far to get good produce, nutritious food and things that aren't accessible here in Gary. My brother is a person with Down syndrome and so I know all too well what that is like. He's strictly chicken fingers and french fries all the time. I know how difficult it can be sometimes to make that work especially in a situation like this. Talk a little bit about the disparity in the community between who got power turned on first, who seems to be getting more of the attention. What have you been seeing on the ground there in Gary in this response effort? My hometown where I was raised is Valparaiso, Indiana. It is predominantly Caucasian. They're just 45 minutes down the road, but I've lived in Gary for over 15 years. The surrounding communities that have a higher median household income, where 33% below the poverty line. We watched Nipsco prioritize other cities and places like Rive was raised. They weren't without power for more than a day and then you look 45 minutes where we're at and it took us two weeks. We were not prioritized. Nipsco released multiple updates on the outages. Gary was not on the list. It took for us to make a lot of noise to even hear maybe this day, maybe that day. But there were a lot of stipulations and rumors surrounding things that never happened that stopped progress and we were pretty much left behind by Nipsco for a long time. I want to talk a little bit about your home as well, which I understand sustained some damage in the storm, tell folks what you're experiencing on a day-to-day basis as a result of that damage. So I know I don't know you're aware, but it was like it's called a drink show. So there was a lot a lot of water. And I know my roof took on a lot of wind a couple of trees and a lot of water. So I have carpet. So our carpet is completely ruined. My mattress was ruined because the roof right above Completely like there's holes in it and there's holes in the closet. There's holes everywhere in my room So a lot of our furniture a lot of our clothes a lot of our Like beds and things we can't use them and we had to wait on FEMA to send people out to come and inspect Every house one by one before they were able to give us anything towards anything and it's at their discretion It's what they feel like you should get so I know along with myself a lot of people have a lot of furniture on the curb I know I throw a lot of stuff away Just trying to get back to normalcy and rebuilding what we had But we're also still dealing with reality of things like you mentioned groceries and our children going back to school things like that Yeah, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for for sharing your experiences and this extreme weather Is impacting folks across the country whether you're in the Midwest or the southeast that so often gets hit By hurricanes or out west where we saw the devastation of the California wildfires most acutely and extremely in 2025 January fires destroyed entire communities across Los Angeles and I connected with Zaire Calvin who lost his home and his mother's home In Altadena about the things that he and his family are never going to get back as a result of extreme weather and why The recovery process remains so difficult for people who are fighting with the insurance companies and the federal government More than a year and a half later. Here is my emotional conversation with Zaire So thank you so much for joining me on in your backyard. I really appreciate you taking the time Yes, I'm glad to be here So talk to me a little bit about your experience out in California in the Eaton fire We saw so much devastation happen In Altadena and Pasadena and so many other places in and around Los Angeles And I understand that that your home was among those claimed in the fires I'm so sorry to hear that which could you tell us a little more about your experience over a year ago now? Yes my experience We we lost five homes on two properties My sister actually died in the fire. She was one of the first victims of the fire We actually literally found her so That's all no we were the first case that happened When it comes to all the tragedy and how much that you know, we've lost our community is devastated we never thought our community was gonna burn down our fire was So unexpected because the fire actually never came down off the hill and never came off the mountain We actually got burned down by the winds and and and in embers that were the size of golf balls tennis balls, you know Extreme weather is what caused it with all of the winds in the fires. I Want to pause for a moment before we keep talking about the extreme weather and and could you share it with me a little bit about your sister and tell me about who she was Yeah, she was a Bus driver She wanted to be a simple woman. She was a college graduate graduated from Loyola Marymount You know went right into corporate America Corporate America was hard on her so she was like I just want more of a basic life So she became a bus driver and wanted to just be there for kids and and be part of community that way and She was a god-faring person. She she Definitely, you know, Jesus was everything to her. So her whole life was about following rules Doing the right thing the biggest thing she ever did bad in life She would say was running the stop sign and she's still arguing with that I could see her from her grave arguing with that sheriff to this day Take it for running the stop sign because she she believed in and in following rules That's probably the worst offense she's had in life and she was just a loving person who wanted you know Who been through a lot in life and wanted a quiet life at this point in life because she went through a lot Yeah, thank you for sharing about her. I understand it was your home and and your mother's home That were lost in the fires in addition to to many more What has it been like Working with the insurance companies in the aftermath of this devastation Working with the insurance companies has been Hell on earth as we can just to put it blatantly We've been fighting as a community and leading the charge against all of the ill practices of insurance companies all the denied delay Pitu does repeat my whole community is under insured I'm talking about even down to our water company. So these aren't even just the individuals We're talking about the whole community is under insured when it comes to insurance and the predatory practices that have happened When it comes to payouts and trying to make sure that our community is stabilized. It's been Absolutely horrendous because our fight you lost everything then you're fighting against The people who you paid your whole life for they've dropped policies They're not honoring policies. It's just been such a Tremendous fight like you said has been a year and a half for us. It feels like it just happened We're still fighting that hard Could you offer some of the specific names of these insurance companies just because I want to reach out to them as a reporter and and try and press as much as we can to put a spotlight on on what they're doing here Yeah, one of the biggest ones the big the biggest contributor has been state far state farm has been the biggest bad actor in this whole Ordeal I've been leading the fight with all of my whole community and The farmers just got sued also so we the county just follow follow suit with lawsuits to do investigative Reports into state farm farmers all state It's been a lot of a lot of insurance, but state farm has been the leading the leading Entity in the in the bad when it comes to Victimize in the community and then also the the California fair plan has been absolutely horrendous. So what they've offered people which is pennies on the dollars That that has been a a huge Problem for our community also. It's so interesting to hear you say that because I know This is the time of year when many people are sitting down to watch football on Sundays and I feel like you oftentimes can't go a commercial break without seeing a commercial From one of those names of those companies that you just mentioned one of them has the slogan you're in good hands Uh, I wonder if you felt that you've been in good hands As a result of of what you've experienced It's so ironic that you say that because I coach and I have kids that actually play Because I'm a coach also they call me coach Z Um, I have kids that actually are in the NFL and then these different arenas and play So when they say are you in good hands is the total opposite and watching the commercials are triggering to a community now which Is very hurtful there are individual claims that have been okay. I always like to state that people have had some Amazing old policies that paid out, but we have not been in good hands as a community It has been very hurtful stressful and it is um start Stagnated are recovering. Talk to me a little bit about the makeup of the community in Altadena Um, I believe at one point you had described some of these folks as pen and paper People which I know in an increasingly digital world makes all the processes of filling out forms that much harder um talk a little bit about What you guys are experiencing in the community Yeah, that um, we have um 50 to 60% of the home ownership where our elders And our elders are pen and paper people. So when it came to being discriminated against and them Finding resources and being able to navigate the systems Um, it's been absolutely horrendous for them. It's been such a Uh, trying time and then the ones who have kind of gotten through is because they have kids that are taking care of them We're trying to walk them through the processes and they're still having problems So you're talking about and these aren't um People who don't have understanding um to give you an idea of the Where we are we're in pacidena you talk about jpl mass so you talk about caltech You're talking about people that are capable and still having problems and navigate in the systems because the systems are so bad. Some of my earliest memories as a child were watching Mr. Rogers and what he has said that stuck with me throughout is whenever something is bad whenever there's trouble you look for the helpers and we've spent a lot of time talking about the folks that have made things a lot harder for you and for your neighbors, but who have been the helpers in all of this? Who have been the people there helping to put the community back together? I would say the first helpers always give God the glory but after that I would say the community. People have helped each other in this process of getting your neighbor helping even in evacuation. It was neighbors that were coming to each other's rescues. It was neighbors that were saving. I have a friend that you know it was a black neighbor and it was a white neighbor whose feet were on fire literally and he picked them up and literally carried him and put him in his car and drove him to safety. So when we talk about community and who the people who were the first responders to everything was the community was first. Then I would say after that philanthropy has been a great support. So philanthropy has actually carried us to where we are now to be able to even be in the position that we are to even start to build philanthropy philanthropic organizations have actually given and the people around the nation who've given have really been the first ones. Again who helped and we're able to help our recovery and then I've been on the front line fighting every part so to get the county and the our senators senators Sasha's parade. Perez has been amazing. She's been front line with us but to organize all of them from hair beading to Perez to our county supervisor to get where we are today has been a collective fight as a community. Yeah I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much again for sharing your story and for all the work that you're doing there on the ground. We really appreciate it. Yes thank you for having me. And it's scary and sad as these personal stories are there's also a broader trend that we need to look at it's tough to say this out loud but these types of stories are going to be happening more often in your community to people that you know and care about even to you. And that's what I talked about with John Morales. He's a meteorologist who has served communities in South Florida for decades and he talked with me about the science behind extreme weather events and what it's been worrying him about what's to come. Take a listen to my conversation with John Morales. John thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today on in your backyard. Now happy to be here. So I want you to give folks a sense of your background and how you got involved in the work that you're doing now. Yeah listen I've been a meteorologist for 42 years greatly as an operational meteorologist were the people that write the forecast but also warn for impending and life threatening weather right and whether it was with the National Weather Service or as a broadcast meteorologist I I served in that fashion for a vast majority of those 42 years. Recently I do some other things more in the realm of climate communications but that is because if you go back 25 years or so within my broadcast meteorology career I am proud to say that I was a pioneer in that area. Broadcast meteorologists you know weathercasters were not providing climate context in their weather segments and I made every effort to do so. And it was an upstream battle still wage it today in an era in which there seems to be more climate hushing than ever but still out there trying to make people aware of what's going on and what's coming. Yeah before I had this job I was a local news reporter in my hometown of Utica New York and some of my favorite people at the station were the meteorologists because I just respect so much the work that you guys do. I know that I can never do it mainly because I'm really bad at math and science but I I really respect the work that you do so much and I've seen with the meteorologists that I've worked with in the past and in the work that I've seen just out of clips from you in South Florida how much you really care about the community that you serve talk a little bit about the role of the service that you perform for the people in South Florida and now have across the country with the work that you're doing on climate. Yeah no listen you know as a South Florida weathercasters since 1991 and especially in the late 90s and the early part of this new century as extreme weather events started to become more severe and multiply and with the added threat of Florida being in the crosshairs of many of the symptoms of the changing climate. I just took it upon me to make sure that the audience realized how important it was to to well clamor for action on climate so that we could try to slow this down or somehow reverse it in other words think of the threats right sea level rise extreme humid heat that's impacting everybody down there stronger hurricanes as well of being driven by climate change when it rains it rains harder because the air mass can sustain more moisture in it and we're seeing rain induced floods in Miami and other South Florida communities much more often so these were all things that were really important to me. It's my job to expand what I was doing for South Floridians to the entire country so that all Americans realize how the changing climate is impacting us in so many ways from from the pocket book right to even existential issues with the communities that we live in. Yeah you talk about those stronger hurricanes and one of the first clips that I saw of your work was during Hurricane Milton when you learned that it was a category 5 hurricane. It's just an incredible incredible incredible hurricane it has dropped. It has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours. I apologize this is just horrific. Maximum sustained winds are 160 miles per hour and you're emotional on the air talking about the impacts of this and the broader impacts of climate change on the community that you serve. Get in the weeds for us a little bit here because I think there is a lot of commentary on the internet we'll just go with that about the causes of these hurricanes and whether they're getting worse as a result of climate change or not get get very specific and granular with us. How do we know that climate change is responsible for these hurricanes and these weather events continuing to get worse? It's physics listen it's it's it's science in the case of hurricane specifically the warmer ocean temperatures record setting temperatures that we've seen in 2026 and we'll continue to see going forward that allows for a easier evaporation of water off the surface of the ocean the water vapor then it goes into the circulation of the hurricane the air rises eventually it cools it condenses out the vapor the vapor becomes liquid again in other words and that process of condensation releases energy into the fledgling hurricane and allows it to grow stronger that's the very specific getting into the weeds of how it works in a hurricane now we're not necessarily seeing a larger count there there's no more tropical storms and hurricanes around the planet than there were before human induced climate change but what what is happening is that the ones that form are becoming stronger there is a greater propensity for tropical cyclones to reach category four and five those intensities on the suffered symptom scale are the catastrophic ones the hurricanes that truly conflaton communities and take lives yeah when you're laying the science out and talking very directly about the reasoning for these hurricanes continuing to get worse in a community like South Florida a community that has shifted in a more rightward leaning direction politically in recent years has voted for people like the president who have cast doubt on a lot of the science that you're talking about have you received any pushback from folks in your community about the forecasts that you're giving about the context that you're providing or is it reaching people to hear it from a trusted voice in their community like you it's the latter I mean the general reaction that I get from folks when I run at the post office, at the bank, at the grocery store. Folks are thanking me for two things. My hurricane acumen, I guess, over many, many years of providing hurricane forecasts. And the second thing is climate communications. Folks are grateful that there is, indeed, somebody on the air, on TV, into their living rooms and bedrooms every night, 'cause they watch, right? They watch our newscasts. Talking about the kinds of things that are threatening South Florida, and are threatening them, and their families, and their communities. How can it be that, you know, when broadcast meteorologists are asked to talk about shooting stars and beautiful sunsets and even earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because we are the station's scientist? If we're asked to talk about all those things, how can we not include this crisis that we're in right now, which requires action to provide people, to empower people with education, so that they know why it is so urgent to call for action on climate. And so, again, the reaction has been very positive. I don't get pushed back, generally speaking, obviously, there are some digital platforms where trolling is more of a sport than it is in others, but, you know, I have a thick enough skin to deal with that. - The other clip that people may have seen of your work came last year, and the first year of the president's second term, where you spoke about your ability to forecast hurricanes accurately and how it's been impacted by the actions of this administration, the cuts in funding to the National Weather Service and other tools that you rely on in order to make accurate forecasts. - Confidently, I went on TV and I told you, it's going to turn. You don't need to worry. It is going to turn. And I am here to tell you that I'm not sure I can do that this year, because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general, and I could talk about that for a long, long time. There's also a chance because of some of these cuts that no hurricane hunter aircraft will not be able to fly this year and with less reconnaissance missions, we may be flying blind. And we may not exactly know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline. Like happened a couple of years ago in Hurricane Otis in Nacapalco, Mexico. So I was asked to talk about this today. I'm glad I was. I just want you to know that what you need to do is call your representatives and make sure that these cuts are stopped. - First, what was your message to the folks watching in South Florida? And what's the reality that you're facing as a meteorologist, as someone trying to forecast the weather emits these cuts? - Yeah, so that happened five months into the Trump regime. The cuts from Doge were just getting started and being felt and I was extremely alarmed because NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and many of its research labs and our own national weather service, right? Which the mission is to save life and property. Well, they were targeted and hundreds of scientists lost their jobs through the Doge cuts. In addition, we were seeing the degradation of our forecast skill because data that was regularly available in the past no longer was. So for example, weather balloon releases. By the way, these things are still pervasive today. 15 months later, we're still not getting the weather balloon data that we need to be able to provide accurate forecasts. And we've seen the consequences, right? We saw, you know, surprise tornadoes in Michigan in the spring that led to the Michigan government asking for an investigation. We saw surprise tornadoes in eastern Kansas, also in the spring, which caught people off guard. We've seen the flip flopping of on-air broadcasters, meteorologists that, you know, see weather models going from one extreme to the other because they can't home in on a result on a proper likely scenario of what the weather is going to be. So at the end of the day, and we can verify this through statistics, we've seen the degradation of the forecast skill of the American weather enterprise to the detriment and a threat to all of us in the country. - Yeah, and I want you to be super specific about what the government was doing previously because I think for a lot of people, they see the numbers on their TV screen, on those green screen maps or on their phones now increasingly. That's where they're getting this information, but they're not entirely sure where it's actually coming from. So talk about the weather balloons and all these things that the government used to be providing, used to be doing to help you and to help your fellow meteorologists make these forecasts that now is happening less and less. - Yeah, listen, this is one of the greatest tragedies of the Trump administration is that the American weather enterprise was the gold standard around the world. Every other country looked to how in the US, we had the partnerships, the data, the scientific skill to be able to provide the best lead time for potential life-threatening and impactful events, the most exact warnings to populations. In that entire assembly has been slowly dismantled by the Trump administration. In other words, NOAA, the parent agency, serves as the scaffolding of what we all do as meteorologists in this country. And the taxpayers have supported NOAA. Obviously, it's a federal agency, just like we support National Institutes of Health and US Department of Agriculture and all these other important agencies, right, to society's well-being. Well, through taxpayer money, NOAA and the National Weather Service have this, as I said, great scaffolding that allows us to provide the forecasts and warnings that save life and poverty. Now, that's been torn apart enough so that I, when I went on the year with that video in June of 2025 that indeed went viral where I was challenging the cuts from the administration. And I was asking folks to contact their elected representatives to make sure that they urged the executive branch to stop doing this, right? When I did that is because I knew that my own ability as a well-known hurricane forecaster for over 40 years was being impacted and that I would no longer have the confidence that I used to have in providing life-saving hurricane forecasts to an audience because of Trump and the Trump cuts. - Yeah, this may seem like a very obvious question, but just to make it very practical for people about what the impacts are here, what does it mean when you don't have the lead time, when you're not able to make as accurate a forecast as you used to be able to, in severe weather events like a hurricane. - Yeah, I mean, one of the ways of looking at that is the costs of evacuation when a hurricane is threatening. If you're unsure of where a hurricane is going or if you're unsure of how strong it might be when it's approaching a population center and you have to overwarn across a larger swath of the coast so that people have to pick up and leave and go to a shelter and figure out what to do with their medicines and figure out what to do with their dog or cat or more importantly, maybe a parent that lives at the house, these are all crucial decisions, which by the way, I mean, not everybody can even afford to evacuate a region due to some of the challenges that we have in this country, right? So when you think of a more inexact hurricane forecast, we're talking about many more people having to expend to spend money on something that they wouldn't have to have done otherwise, which by the way, in the end, those folks that evacuated over that took action for a hurricane that never saw a raindrop or a puff of wind are going to be suffering from this false alarm syndrome, right? The cry wolf syndrome going forward and perhaps not take action in a future storm. So that's, I mean, that's just one example of many of how these type of cuts impact us all. - Yeah, when you talked about that uncertainty in the path of a storm, it reminded me of actually one the most telling images of the president's first term in office when there was a hurricane making its way up the coast and he had put out a message saying that it was one of the targeted states that it could hit was Alabama that went against what the National Weather Service had said. And so when he was in the Oval Office presenting on it, I'm sure I don't need to remind you of this. He had drawn on the hurricane path map in Sharpie to extend the path of the hurricane to include the state of Alabama. That's not the only example of where the president's communication has gone awry, but I wonder what impact that has on the work that you do, if any, to have that lack of clarity and communication coming from the very top of the government. Right, so I mean, the president has the biggest bullhorn, right? And when you have the leader of a country providing misinformation, it can only lead to trouble. In that particular case, we were talking about Hurricane Dorian in the year 2019. It was in the Bahamas. It was going to make a north turn as a matter of fact, it's part of my example of when I used to be confident in providing hurricane forecasts, which I no longer am as much, right? So we knew, we knew where the hurricane was going to head, generally speaking, we couldn't name the exact time it was going to hit, if it was going to hit along the US coast, but one thing we knew is that it wasn't going to Alabama, right? So so and by the way, I mean, this led to an entire call at Sharpie Gate, right? Because part of the problem that we're living through right now is the whole fear because of the intimidation of the, you know, of the of the man that's in power in this country, and his entire team, right? I mean, the folks, even within the National Weather Service, were fearful to speak up and correct the president when he drew this path, you know, that was going to take Hurricane Dorian to Alabama. And that's part of the problem that we're living through today, I mean, there's never been a time like today to be courageous. We need more people being courageous and standing up to what's going on. Yeah. In a similar vein relating to the Sharpies, he's been taking a sharpie to a lot of other places on the map. I'm from upstate New York. So obviously, he just recently changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America for American purposes. Apple maps, Google maps, followed suit. The same way they did early on in his term when he renamed the Gulf Mexico to the Gulf of America. You're reporting on whether in South Florida, how are you handling that on the air? And how do you hope others will handle it? Does it create any sort of confusion or division among the people that you're trying to serve? Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it creates confusion, because of course, everybody knows that the, you know, so-called Gulf of America refers to the Gulf of Mexico, but division for sure. I've seen quite a few exchanges from folks that complain to broadcast meteorologists because they've named it Gulf of Mexico on the air. They've said it's Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America. And by the way, I mean, generally, this is a one-sided thing. It's the folks in the cult that generally want to defend the so-called renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. I don't think you see much of that from the other side, although if I were to be on the air and call the Gulf of America, I think people would probably be a little bit concerned too. Bottom line here is that, you know, these unilateral renaming of international bodies of water are not recognized anywhere except, you know, in the White House and those circles. I, again, talking about lack of courage. We see a lot of companies capitulating to this and renaming their maps, at least for American audiences. Not sure what those maps look like internationally when you access them from, say, Apple Maps or Google, right? But certainly for the US audience, they've capitulated. But again, that's not the way those bodies of water are known to the world, right? It's only something that at the whim of the man in power we've seen happen. So I call it Gulf of Mexico, you know, I call it Lake Ontario. I will call it New Mexico, you know. And so does MapQuest, apparently. So they've been the ones that have stood out on this front. I want to pivot to more serious topics than then all of that. And that is, as you look ahead to the severe weather on the horizon, what worries you the most about this upcoming storm season and storm seasons to come? We've heard a lot of talk about El Nino, especially for folks living on the West Coast and Southern California. What can you provide for folks in terms of what they should be preparing for in the next few weeks and months and years? Yeah, so short term definitely the El Nino, which is a record-setting intense, very, very strong. It is likely going to bring some very impactful weather. Well, already is across the world, but specifically in the United States, there's going to be likely some very heavy precipitation in California and parts of the mountains out west. There's going to be a very stormy south from Texas to Florida and the Carolinas. A lot of powerful fronts with a lot of tournatic activity likely to happen during this winter spreading into the spring as well. And that could lead, it could be so wet that we could see some floods etc. By the way, ahead of all that, we've seen a pretty severe drought going on in the Caribbean. We know it's going on in Puerto Rico and that's not the only place where it's happening. Many other Caribbean islands are suffering the drought because of the El Nino, so that's just one example of many of impacts worldwide from that phenomena. So people need to be aware and ready for that. And before I pivot to some of my bigger concerns of the era we're living in in terms of our ability to prepare people for these impactful events, let me also state that beyond the El Nino, everybody needs to be aware that we are warming the planet, which is leading to more frequent and extreme weather events that can threaten life and property. This is not going to stop. You never know when it's going to come for your neighborhood, your neck of the woods. And I would urge everybody to try to disassociate yourself with your lived experience. Don't let the past be a guide for your actions, potential life-saving actions going forward because the events that we're seeing generally speaking nobody's ever seen, right? So the worst can happen and folks need to think that way so that when there is a, you know, call it a slight chance for an extreme of that happening, you know, I wouldn't look at it as such a slight chance. Things are happening with great ease now that can threaten a lot of lives and property. Now, combine all that with our degraded ability to monitor, forecast, and warn for severe weather events because of the Trump administration's indiscriminate cuts to science in general, right? And don't get me started on that. But specifically, right, to America's weather enterprise, which, again, used to be the world gold standard, but may no longer be. Well, you know, if we can't even properly warn you like we used to, then, you know, you need to be very concerned and be very alarmed and make sure, again, I urge everybody to continue to contact their elected representatives and let them know vociferously how important to your family's safety it is that we keep these systems in place. The systems that helped save American lives and property need to be upheld and everybody needs to be a part of that calling. John, thanks so much for joining us in your backyard. I really appreciate your time. I want to thank John for sharing his expertise and Ajahn's idea for sharing their personal stories with all of us, even as they're going through so much in their communities and with their families. I also want to keep this going, keep this conversation going about extreme weather and all the issues that are impacting you in your communities. So if there are stories you want to share with us about the things happening in your backyard topics, issues that we should be covering here on this show, we want to hear from you. Drop it in the comments section, let me know, reach out to me on social media. I've really enjoyed talking to folks about what's been happening in their backyards. We'll be back here in two weeks. Until then, please continue to support the the Midas Touch Network, and thanks as always for watching. [MUSIC]