The Big K Morning Show
Today's TOP Stories
New Mexico. Good morning Larry Richard with Paul Rasmussen, our top stories. The aftermath of Hurricane Helene, let's start there Paul so much to cover and so widespread. I mean we always think of Florida along the coast but deeper inland western Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, they've had flooding that they have been seeing. They described some of the flooding over two feet of rain as a one in one thousand year event in parts of the south. I mean we just talked earlier with the Elliott-Pelchione over in Sarasota, Bradenton area to find out that the storm surge was ten feet high. Now think about that, this thing went on landfall, went in on the panhandle of Florida. How many hundreds of miles away is long bow key from just south of Tallahassee, right? Right. And ten feet? This was a massive storm and it gained strength in a hurry and became a category four when it made landfall and the big bend but then it dumped rain as it pushed north that caused in the mountain areas in particular this catastrophic flooding that took down bridges and wiped out towns completely gone. There was a before and after picture I saw of this little town, a mountain town in North Carolina and literally in one picture you see this almost Norman Rockwell painting of a little town and in the aftermath of the flooding there's nothing left, nothing. So by way the death toll update just came in, it's now 116 people. To give you some idea of just how widespread this thing is and the problems that people are having in multiple states, in Georgia, the mayor of Augusta, a guy by the name of Garnett Johnson, says the damage to the power lines is so severe it will likely take until October 5th for 95% of their customers to have their power restored. Listen to what he says. Now this power, let me just tell you how difficult it is, I've written around this town, I've never seen concrete, powerful, snapped as a result of storms in Augusta, Georgia, not down in Savannah or on the coast. Wow, concrete, pulled, snapped and okay, it will take years for some of these places to even resemble the towns they were as of three days ago. It's so overwhelming, it's hard to imagine. I expected there to be a real mess in the panhandle of Florida and probably Southern Georgia there around the Macon or Valdosta, you know, but certainly not what we're seeing in South Carolina, North Carolina, my goodness. We'll continue to keep you posted and there will be some ways that we can help. One of the things they're in great need of is just simple bottled water in many areas. We take water for granted certainly around here. The mudslides closed many roads in western North Carolina up there in the mountainous area of the state and so they're airlifting things in, dropping things by helicopter into people and also making air rescues as well. So we'll continue to keep you posted on the aftermath and unfortunately there are a couple of storms lined up in the Atlantic and there is some concern. The next one could develop and follow a very similar path of Helene. And they're talking hurricane by midweek if it develops the way they think he may. Yesterday the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road in Indianapolis dropped their first game of the season and mostly because of their own doing. That's right. Including late in the game when the Steelers had a chance to at least tie. I mean they weren't that many yards away from getting into field goal range to at least tie the game, put it into overtime, maybe get down and score a touchdown and win it. Rookie center Zach Frazier snapped the ball and Justin Fields bounced off his helmet. He wasn't looking and that really helped cause the end of what we hope would be a comeback. Zach Frazier talked about it. You start thinking about your time outs potentially football is loose fields of vading a catastrophe but they lose a ton of yardage. So that was CBS's coverage after the game feels took credit for that. He says that one's on me. He did. Yeah. And I gave him a lot of credit for doing that whether it was really his fault or not. And he said he should have been looking he was looking at the defense obviously. I think it's Ray Fiddepaldo that does the grading of the different parts of the team after each game. Right. Like the quarterback it's a grade. The running backs get a grade. The coaches got an F and I think that's richly deserved. Why so? Well a failure to adapt early on in the game. A lack of blitzing to get it flacko. They said not to kick a 59 yard field goal instead you know giving the Colts the ball back there were just a number of those kind of you know as a but I mean as a whole it was just it seemed like it was a very inflexible response. It was like well we're going to stick with what we what our game plan was instead of adjusting on the fly. Oh turn in the ball over in the red zone man that that was the killer. That was the reason they lost in my opinion. They ended up they were down 17 nothing and still were within three points at the end of the game. Isn't that an amazing job that fields did I think he carried the team. Let's be honest. I did so by the way next game is Sunday night football at Akrasher Stadium. Here come the Cowboys Cowboys coming to town. Yeah well they're overdue for a good woman. All right people are going to use social media and try to find lucky. Oh man. This is a 10 year old airdale Terrier who belongs to William Martz of Donegal Township who was carjacked in East Huntington and they found the suspect. They believe who stole the car and carjacked him and what he said he'd let lucky out at a rest stop somewhere on the yeah headed down there on the coast and the deputies found this guy and the vehicle which had been damaged apparently that there was a pursuit on I-95. He said he'd let the dog loose somewhere between Myrtle Beach and a spot in North Carolina. So Mr. Martz is elderly he's in he's I think he's 87 right so he's he's heartbroken he spoke with Katie KTV this is going to be tough to listen to but let's go ahead and to be stolen in the car and going that distance as far as the car goes he could let him go in the park a lot of and I was in happier I would have missed the car don't get me wrong but cars can be replaced dogs can't I'm sorry well I hope well somehow by some maybe social media post they have the picture posted the dog and if they can find lucky somewhere in the Carolinas there I just I hope that lucky was you know fortunate in that he somebody got ahold of men trying to take care of men eventually they'll get the idea that they know where he goes where he belongs I guess it's just it's just wow you just your heart just goes off for for this guy he's just as sweet as an old man can be yeah and that's what people are talking about and the rain to in this is actually the remnants of Halene in the region today and we're gonna have a high of just 69 degrees but often on brain and drizzle over the next couple of days song about Duke Ellington yeah and what's interesting about Stevie Wonder's music is that it's so unique to Stevie Wonder he's one of those artists the second you hear his music you know who it is for me I think it would be superstition well that's the one I would say probably overall man it's tough to pick one there's so many good ones so you could be going to see the show on us and 720 in the next hour we will do that did you happen to see over the weekend going down the doom scrolling this woman who was handcuffed at Disney World or Disney Land in California what happened so there's a video of a mom handcuffed to me marched out at Disneyland as her two young daughters cried and were calling for help now the rest of the story despite the heart wrenching visual the woman who's 26 is a habitual gatecrasher at the park mom is an annual pass holder but authorities say she walked through Disney's gates without tickets for her kids and they she's expected of having done this at least four times in the past two months the park officials said she could stay if she just paid the difference for the kids when she refused she tried to come back again and do it again oh boy so they escorted her out and she is permanently banned well Disney like nice nice so she had a pass for herself yes but didn't pay for the kids right which is not an inexpensive thing oh god right definitely almost two hundred dollars a ticket right is that right oh yeah for one day I remember not too long ago I think we were talking with someone here who had been to a Disney World with his wife and his I think three children and said that the the whole package just to get them all in was over five hundred dollars oh easy easily I guess now and then they asked is this your first born okay we'll just keep them they'll work here now come on man it's a small world after all mmm-hmm six for choosing us Larry Richard with thank her man Paul Rasmussen will continue to bring you updates from the devastation of Hurricane Helene and what's happened down south unimaginable two and a half feet of rain in some parts of the Carolinas Tennessee Georgia ten states overall and over two million people without power in some cases not coming back anytime soon Larry right now our rain here extends from pretty much across Washington County all of Allegheny County Northern Westmoreland County kind of slowly creeping northward and yes this is the remnants by the way of that storm with it looks like another storm brewing in the Atlantic and we'll keep you posted up Paul you outright an editorial about the TSA and people that bring guns to the airport yeah and joining us is Lisa Barbstein who has spokesperson strategic communications public affairs for the TSA Lisa good morning good morning so we're on track here 33 I guess checkpoint firearms catches so far as of last week correct that's correct that says of as of yesterday now oh okay as of yesterday walk us through what happened so everybody's in line to get checked and when there is a discovery of a firearm at TSA what happens so let's just say that the firearm is in somebody's backpack so what happens is there's a TSA officer who is viewing the x-ray monitor and if they see what appears to be a firearm first thing they're going to do is that they're going to leave that backpack inside the x-ray machine and they're going to turn off the conveyor belt then they're going to notify a supervisor the supervisor is going to come and take an extra look at the x-ray monitor as well so you've got the double confirmation at that point the supervisor is going to make sure that the police are notified in this case will be the Allegheny County Police then they stay up at the airport and they're going to come over to that checkpoint and they are going to be the ones that remove that backpack from the x-ray machine and that's because if indeed they determine that it is a legit firearm and say not a replica we do not want our TSA officers to be in a position of handling firearms because that's an accident waiting to happen so the police again will come over they're going to remove that backpack they're going to open the backpack and then they're going to be the ones to confirm yes it is a firearm and in about 90 percent of the cases they are loaded and they're going to have the passenger come to the side so what happens is until all that takes place everybody else in that line has come to a standstill now they're going to come to a standstill sometimes they are moved to another lane which is then going to make that lane even longer that other checkpoint lane so the police are pretty quick about coming and responding to the checkpoint but that could be definitely a delay for several hundred passengers so keep that in mind at that point it is really up to the police whether somebody will be sighted somebody will be arrested or none of the above but in any instance the police will be confiscating that firearm TSA does not confiscate weapons the police do Lisa curious to know do you have any estimate on how many passengers on average are delayed when this happens when you have to shut down one of the lanes at the checkpoint how many people are delayed is this in the thousands in the annual an annual period you know i i do not have anything like that and a lot of it has to do with the time of day so the early morning rush hour so airports have rush hours just like highways and their early morning at Pittsburgh is the busiest time of day say maybe from maybe four to seven a.m so right now is probably pretty darn busy at the checkpoint so if i'm the person with the handgun that's in my bag at the TSA what happens to me you said one of three options that it's the police their call right right so the police will deal with any criminal citations any criminal obviously an arrest will be a criminal case and TSA also will have its inspectors review the incident right up re-report and then the individual is likely to receive a federal civil financial penalty typically that can run into the several thousands of dollars in addition if an individual is in the TSA pre-check program they're going to get booted out of the program wow so there are some other penalties uh the TSA can impose as well that said passengers can bring a firearm onto an aircraft but it has to be checked through luggage that's in the belly of the plane right exactly you want to transport your firearm for a flight that's great no problem as long as you pack it the right way and the way the packet is first make sure it's unloaded you think that'd be obvious but oftentimes it's not i guess so you want to make sure it's unloaded that it's packed in a hard sided case that that case is locked and then you take it to your airline check encounter and they're going to make sure basically you're declaring you want to fly with your firearm and then the airline will make sure that it is uh that it's transported in the belly of the plane where nobody has access to it during the flight and that's key you want to travel with it fine but nobody should have access to it during the flight lisa uh we have a problem because the number of guns that are being stopped at the checkpoints is increasing instead of going down i mean uh you've got even at that last moment at the checkpoints you've got huge signs telling people you know no guns and still what has to change for this to stop well we need the firearm owners to be more responsible and they need to really pay attention to what is in their carry-on bags we have a saying no before you go and by that we mean make sure that you know the contents of your baggage before you leave for the airport because you are ultimately responsible for anything that is in your carry-on bag or your check bag so indeed no before you go all right lisa we appreciate the update thank you you're very welcome and you're probably excited to move to the new airport next year well you're going to have expanded service oh yeah we're very excited uh we are eagerly awaiting the opening of the new airport all right lisa farm stein spokesperson for tsa on the big k morning show so paul you got the details yeah it's uh it's it's hard for me to uh it's hard for me to understand how someone could be standing there with a with a gun in in their carry-on and be standing there in front of a six foot sign that just jumps out at you that says this is something you cannot do one guy said his wife put it in there and didn't tell him yeah well so far 33 confiscations the record was last year at 44 so we've got three months to go i guess the uh the word isn't getting out and so how does that how do we change that i don't know uh and perhaps one thing we didn't get into at least and she probably couldn't address it anyway is is there a is there an actually is it an actual federal crime to bring a gun to an airport checkpoint and if that were a crime that could be you know what i'm saying right then it maybe that would be different uh you know cuz the fines apparently aren't getting anyone's attention they're not working no 650 a news radio katie can let's check in with Paul Rasmussen widespread destruction from the beaches of western florida to the mountains of western north carolina we'll have the latest on haleen coming up at seven on the voice of pittsburgh news radio katie k8 and let's check in with meteorologist joe lunberg at accuator's headquarters joe what devastation over the weekend ten states in fact the remnants or the rain we're getting now right yeah pretty much i've been it's tied with an upper level low pressure area that's just not moving it's the thing that caught at the first time and brought it westward and brought all that devastation to the mountains of north carolina and into eastern tennessee but it's just going to roble around for the next couple of days we're going to get off off and on light rain and drizzle nothing like what they saw down there but cloudy skies for the next couple of days does give way to some sunshine as we get to wednesday so improving weather here once we get to midweek and what about the talk of potentially some storms lining up in the atlantic oh there's several more opportunities as an area of disturbed weather in the western caribbean and that's going to kind of bleed into the southwest gulf of mexico it's an area that could develop slowly over the next few days and unfortunately it looks like florida or perhaps part of the southeast may be a target i don't think it would get up into the carolina at this point of time but that's obviously subject to change and there's more systems are going to be developing out on the atlantic is one of the on the verge of becoming a tropical storm that's likely to become a strong hurricane by the end of the week although it looks like that would stay out in the atlantic and there's probably more behind that one too joe i'm concerned that we're heading into the heart of the hurricane season and we could wind up having a really awful year it could be a bad year especially when you look at what helene has just done that's unimaginable joe thanks for the update you're welcome and we'll keep you posted here on news radio kd ka coming up more details on helene's destructive path through the south it started in the gulf of mexico and paul when we looked at this storm in the gulf originally it was so large it basically filled the entire gulf of mexico yes it did and it was over i believe it was over it they said at one point the hottest water on the planet at that moment that's the waters in the gulf were the hottest yeah to give you some idea uh they've had over the last couple summers record temperatures in the gulf of mexico which obviously in the summer is always traditionally warm but these were most unusual and that's the fuel that a storm like that uses and uh it intensifies over that heat yep right in in the gulf unfortunately was on what they called the dirty side of the storm that pulls the water up onto the shore and uh it's it's it's you you see these videos of the destruction and then you see the flooding issues particularly in the carolina's in the mountains where it's just cascading taking out towns with it i see in a report uh that just over the border in eastern kentucky uh for example harlan kentucky same kind of terrain i guess that they have some problems over in far eastern kentucky as well and more storms as you heard with meteorologist joe lunberg lining up