Students: This is Team 7B from Mahopac Middle School in Mahopac, New York. Channel One News starts right now!
Keith: Mahopac Middle School kicking us off — thanks so much, guys! Okay, today, Irma is dying down, but the cleanup is now picking up; plus, we go underground to check out the deadliest weapons in the world.I am Keith Kocinski. Let's get this show going.
Right now, there is a massive cleanup and recovery effort underway in Florida after Hurricane Irma tore through the state.
So here is what we know. At least 13 deaths in the U.S. are being blamed on Irma. More than 15 million people are without power in several states, including Florida and Georgia. Miami International Airport has reopened, but has limited flights, and the U.S. military has dispatched an aircraft carrier to the Florida Keys to help with relief.
And as the cleanup and recovery efforts move forward, some residents are now being allowed to return home.
A long line of cars inched south on the highway for a first look at Irma's destruction in the Florida Keys. Most of the area has no power, water, sewage or fuel.
Shawne Street rode out the storm.
Shawne Street: You didn't know if you were going to make it or not.
Keith: More than 400 miles up north in Jacksonville, residents are finally making their way back.
Shauna Austin: We had sandbags out and everything, but that didn't do anything.
Keith: Shauna Austin spent the morning trying to get the water out at the dry cleaners she works at.
Austin: Everybody's okay; we just got to do a little cleaning up.
Keith: Michal Holy from Bonita Springs, Florida, says, with a half foot of water in his house, he is worried about the recovery.
Michal Holy: I don't know how long it's going to take, don't know how long I'll be able to move back in and actually live a normal life again.
Keith: America's tomato capital, Immokalee, was one of the hardest-hit areas.
Several homes had roofs ripped off. Jesse Navarrete and his family were there during the storm.
Jesse Navarrete: I've been through a couple of them. This is one that really hit us…And you know what?Next time they say leave — evacuate? I'm gone.
Keith: For those who did leave, getting back is also frustrating. The state is still dealing with gas shortages, blocked roads and a limited number of flights coming into Florida.
All right, coming up, we meet the young people who are monitoring the deadliest weapons on Earth.
Keith: Okay, as we follow the news about North Korea and the nuclear threat, let's take a look at today's Word in the News, which is sanction: a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule.
On Monday the United Nations slapped North Korea with a new round of economic sanctions, and it comes after the country keeps testing nuclear weapons.
The new sanctions, which were agreed on by nations including the U.S., Russia and China, include: cutting some oil supplies in North Korea; putting a ban on textile exports, like clothing, which brings in $700 million a year for North Korea; and stopping all new work visas for North Koreans who want to work overseas.
The measures are aimed at hitting the North Korean government's finances, but even President Trump admits it is a small move.
President Donald Trump: Those sanctions are nothing compared to what ultimately will have to happen.
Keith: Now, the sanctions are an effort by world powers to pressure North Korea into ending its nuclear weapons program, which brings us to take a look into nuclear weapons right here in our own backyard.Maggie Rulli continues her series as she spends time with the people whose job it is to keep the nukes safe and ready to go.
Maggie: So underground there is where the assets are kept.
We are flying over the deadliest weapons in the world.Right underneath that ordinary patch of concrete is a Minuteman III missile armed with a nuclear weapon. The United States currently has nearly 2,000 active nuclear weaponsready to use on a minute’s notice.Around 450 of them are kept underground on bases across the country,in the backyards of rural America, like here at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.
So out this window right now, it is private property — farms, cows — but if you take a look just out the other side, on the other window, it is a launch facility with a missile, a nuclear asset, underground.
Here, we are met with tight security, checked and accounted for.
We are brought underground…
I think this is the fifth time we have had our ID checked so far.
… past blast doors made of 8 tons of reinforced steel. The doors, along with everything else down here, were designed in the 1960s. We see ancient-looking keyboards and binders being used to store sensitive documents.
Lieutenant Elias Corcho: Right now, technology is so advanced that it would be very difficult for a technical expert to interact with something that is so old. They would probably be confused and wouldn't know how to jam it.
Maggie: It is old technology being used by young missileers—men and women like Elias Corcho and his deputy, Oliver Parsons. They are the ones who would launch a nuclear weapon.
Have you ever been nervous?
Lieutenant Oliver Parsons: There's been a few times when things go a different way than you kind of expect. It’s a lot of responsibility, but we really take that responsibility to heart.
Maggie: In order to launch a bomb, they need classified codes — codes that can only come from the president of the United States.
So one of you couldn't go rogue?
Parsons: Nope.
Corcho: Nah, not possible.
Maggie: We are told that while the tech is outdated,the security is state of the art. The missile is protected with a 110-ton concrete door on top. The building has sensors that can measure if someone is trying to dig a tunnel underneath, and, of course, there is a highly trained team of security forces with the authority to kill intruders on the spot.
Major General Garrett Harencak: So what you have today is this triad of submarines, missiles and bombers, all doing one thing and one thing only, and that’s preventing — preventing — a nuclear war.
Maggie: Minot is one of only two bases in the country that operates a B-52, a plane capable of carrying a nuclear bomb.
So, if needed, this plane could carry 20 nuclear-capable missiles?
Mike DeVito: And we train to that quite frequently.
Maggie: Mike DeVito has logged more than 2,000 hours as a B-52 pilot and says the plane’s ability to fly around the world nonstopshows that the United States can drop a nuclear weapon anytime, anywhere in the world.
DeVito: We can take off from here in Minot, fly to somewhere in the Middle East, drop a bomb on somebody within feet of accuracy, and then fly back and then land here.
This kind of looks like your grandfather’s TV, this green cathode ray. It still works fine.
Maggie: But these missions also rely on 50-year-old technology.
Harencak: Let me explain just how old to you.
Maggie: Major General Harencak runs nuclear operations for the chief of staff of the Air Force.
Harencak: In 1984 I flew the B-52.Today my son — he’s a captain in the United States Air Force. He flies the same airplane — the same tail number.
Maggie: So it is more than 50 years old, and you rely on it to fly these missions. Does that ever worry you?
Captain Travis Halleman: Now, that is one great thing they did during the Cold War days is they overdesigned everything, so the plane is sturdy like you can't believe. We have the best maintenance rates of all, you know, all the planes.
Maggie: Have you ever felt nervous that there was a potential for some type of close call?
Halleman: Not in the least bit. With us, it's having the systems in place so that there's a backup to the backup to the backup.
Maggie: But the safety record of America's nuclear system has been called into question.
Eric Schlosser: Throughout the Cold War and since the Cold War, there's been a real effort not to reveal information about nuclear weapons accidents.
Maggie: We currently spend an average of $20 billion a year on our nuclear weapons program, making America the world’s leading spender on nukes. General Harencak admits the military is using relics from the past. He says he needs more money to upgrade and fix the outdated equipment.
Harencak: Just like if you tried to have a flip phone — try to get a flip phone fixed. We still have flip phones in the military. It still works, but you can’t get it fixed. You can't find parts for it.
Maggie: Maggie Rulli, Channel One News.
Keith: Tomorrow we look at how America’s aging nuclear program stacks up against the rest of the world and why some argue spending any money on nukes is too much. Plus, we have got you covered with more on ChannelOne.com.
All right, guys, that is it for us, but we are right back here tomorrow.
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