Transcript of Hurricane Melissa Aftermath, Israel Strikes Gaza Again, Air-Traffic Controllers

Hurricane Melissa makes landfall in Cuba after it drenched entire neighborhoods in Jamaica.

The storm flooded the streets and cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people. Now, how much damage is it causing in Cuba?

I'm Michelle Martin with Leila Fadel, and this is Up First from NPR News. President Trump insists the Gaza ceasefire is intact even after Israel launched new strikes that killed about 100 Palestinians.

They killed an Israeli soldier, so the Israelis hit back, and they should hit back.

Is this a ceasefire when it looks like war?

And air traffic controllers are working without pay as the government shutdown just keeps going. I'll tell you this, almost every controller can't make it without two paychecks. What happens when the people keeping planes safe can't afford to stay on the job? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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As the sun rises over Jamaica, the country is surveying the damage left behind by a massive Category 5 storm that made landfall on Tuesday.

Hurricane Melissa is now battering the West Coast of Cuba.

Npr's Eader Peralta has been following the story from his base in Mexico City and joins me now. Good morning, Eader.

Hey, good morning, Daila.

Okay, so let's start with Jamaica. What do we know about the damage the storm has caused?

The one piece of good news in all of this is that the most populous part of Jamaica, the capital of Kingston, missed the brunt of this storm Indeed, the government says the international airport there may reopen for relief flights as early as Thursday. But Hurricane Melissa caused significant damage. More than half a million people are without power, and the government says that every single The single part of the country is dealing with blocked roads and down power lines. The biggest worry is the western part of Jamaica, which was absolutely pummeled. The storm came on shore, packing 185-mile-per-hour winds, and it produced a storm surge of up to 13 feet high. The Minister of Local Government, Desmond Mackenzie, said the whole of Saint Elizabeth Parish was underwater. We have reports coming out of Black River. Our number of families being trapped in their homes, and it was difficult for the rescue team to get there.

So, Eater, that obviously leads to the question of whether these rescue teams will be able to get there today. Do you have any idea?

I mean, Desmond-McEnzy said they are hoping and praying that they can get there today and that those people are alive. Much of the work of the government is focused on trying to clear the roads. But this is going to be a lot of work. One of the local MPs in Elizabeth Parish shared videos online, and they showed serious devastation. The town of Black River, you can see roads covered in water, and anything that was not concrete was destroyed. In one of those videos, we see a police station that has been flooded by a couple of feet of water. All the windows have been blown out. Outside, we see that cars have been submerged in water. Phone lines and the internet in those places are down, so it may be a while until we get a real idea of the extent of damage. Authorities, for example, say that they don't yet have any reports of deaths, though three people were killed in the run-up to the storm as they trim trees. It's also worth noting that several countries, including the US, say they are prepared to help with the relief effort.

Okay, so that is the damage in Jamaica, but this storm is still out there. Where is it now?

Yeah. As I went through Jamaica, it lost a lot steam. It emerged back out into the Caribbean. It strengthened, and then it slammed into Eastern Cuba early this morning, still as a major Category 3 hurricane. Cuba has ordered hundreds of thousands to evacuate, but that island nation is especially vulnerable right now. It's going through a terrible economic crisis, and its electrical grid is often thrown offline by much smaller storms. So we expect it to have a big impact on Cuba.

That's NPR's Eider Peralta reporting from his base in Mexico City. Eider, thank you.

Thank you, Leila.

Overnight, the ceasefire in Gaza suddenly looked a lot like war. Npr's Enes Baba in Gaza City recorded that sound of an Israeli airstrike last night.

The Israeli military says a soldier was killed, and Gaza civil defense officials counted around 100 Palestinians killed all in less than 24 hours. Now the ceasefire is back on.

We have NPR's Daniel Eshtrin on the line from Tel Aviv with the latest. Good morning, Daniel. Good morning, Leila. So what happened that led to all these killings?

Well, the Israeli military says troops were dismantling a Hamas tunnel yesterday afternoon. This is in an area of Gaza that troops are positioned in, and that, Palestinian militants opened fire and killed a soldier. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately ordered forceful strikes in response. Palestinians report airstrikes on homes, on displaced persons' tents throughout Gaza. Npr's Anas Baba captured this scene at a hospital morgue. That's Halima Abu Hanna cradling the lifeless body of her 10-year-old son, Fadi, and she's saying, Why did they take my soul away from me? Tell the world enough. Gaza civil defense officials say around 35 children were among some Palestinians killed. Israel says it killed 30 militants in these strikes. It was one of the single deadliest 24-hour periods we've seen in Gaza, even deadlier than many days throughout the war. And by today, 10: 00 AM local time, Israel said the ceasefire was back on.

The US was the one who brokered this deal. Did the US approve this wave of Israeli strikes?

It did. President Trump told reporters that when an Israeli soldier is killed, Israel should hit back, but he said nothing is going to jeopardize the ceasefire. Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave. They're on the rough side, but they said they would be good, and If they're good, they're going to be happy, and if they're not good, they're going to be terminated. Indeed, the US is very invested in a major effort here to build an international stabilization force. It's planning big development projects to rebuild Gaza. Hamas says it had no connection to this shooting on the soldier. It could have been militants acting without orders. But we did see a similar wave of violence happen last week, and now again, we're seeing the ceasefire back on fairly quickly.

We've also been hearing about a dispute over the search for Israeli hostage bodies that remain in Gaza. Is this going to impact the ceasefire, which we've seen already broken twice?

It could. Israel has been considering limiting humanitarian aid to Gaza or even taking over more territory in Gaza to pressure Hamas to hand over hostage bodies more quickly. Israel is accusing Hamas of purposefully dragging its feet on returning 13 more hostage bodies. Hamas denies that. Yesterday, Israel said Hamas faked the discovery of a hostage body in the ground, and Israel released footage of this. You see a body being buried and then unearthed. The Red Cross, in a statement, said it was unacceptable that a recovery was staged. Now, Hamas is saying it found two more hostage bodies. There are so many bodies, either believed to be buried under rubble, just like many bodies of Palestinians. So there are fears that those hostage bodies may never be recovered.

I'm PR's Daniel Eshtren in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Daniel, for this reporting.

You're very welcome.

The government shutdown is disrupting flights across the country.

Air traffic controllers are still required to come to work despite receiving zero dollars in their paychecks this week. And controllers say that's making an already difficult job even harder.

The pressure is real. We have people trying to keep this airplane safe. We have trainees trying to learn a new job that is very fast-paced, very stressful, very complex, now having to worry about how they're going to pay bills.

That's air traffic controller Joe Sagretto, who works at one of the busiest air traffic control centers in New York. But it's not just him. In Atlanta, our member station, W ABE spoke to controllers who handle traffic around the nation's busiest airport about how they're coping. We're going to hear first from Maximilian Crawford and then Wardell Williams.

We have controllers living paycheck to paycheck.

They're hurting, and they're asking for help from loans or from family or to do other jobs outside of their on duty time. They just got to do what they need to do to provide for their family. It's horrible.

We still got lives to live.

We still got miles to feed, daycare, roofs over our head, things that we need to pay for.

A lot of people are doing multiple different things.

Some people driving Uber, doing Uber Eats, and all kinds of different things to make ends meet.

To dig deeper on this, we turn to NPR's Joel Rose. Hi, Joel.

Hey, Leila.

Okay, so as we just heard, air traffic controllers are now speaking up publicly. Is that unusual?

It is, and I think it's a sign of the mounting pressure that they face as this government shutdown drags on. This week marks the first time that they've officially missed a full paycheck. Some controllers were out at airports yesterday Today, taking their message directly to the flying public and handing out leaflets, calling on Congress to end the shutdown now. The controllers union says some have taken on second jobs in the gig economy, driving for Uber or DoorDash or Instacart. Others may be working in food service. The Union says that is a minority, probably only in the hundreds of controllers. But Union leaders say this is adding unnecessary stress for all controllers. And the Transportation Department says there has been an uptick in the number of controllers who are calling in sick.

Yeah, they're all this work without pay. So how much is all of this affecting passengers?

It's a good question. We have seen isolated delays at airports across the country because of staffing shortages in places like Los Angeles, Washington, Dallas, Atlanta, Newark. But overall, delays this month have not been out of line with what is normal outside of the shutdown. The aviation analytics firm, Serum, says on any given day, about 20% of all flights are delayed more than 15 minutes for a bunch of reasons. There has not been a dramatic increase since the beginning of shutdown. Still, there is a lot of concern about what will happen as the shutdown continues and if air traffic controllers are forced to miss another paycheck. Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, held a press conference yesterday at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Here's a bit of what he had to say.

Many of our controllers can make it without this first paycheck.

They've been in the job for 10, 15, 20 years. They plan for days like this. But I'll tell you this, almost every controller can't make it without two paychecks.

Keep in mind, there was already a shortage of air traffic controllers before the shutdown. The system is more than 3,000 certified controllers short. And controllers in many places were already working six-day weeks with mandatory overtime. So it just doesn't take a big increase in sick calls to have a major impact on a system that is already fragile.

So given all this, is it safe to fly right now?

Yes. According to the FAA and the Department of Transportation, their top priority is keeping the system safe. But if they have to, they will limit the number of planes that are in the air in order to keep from overloading the system. So I would say, yes, it is safe to fly, but we are going to see a lot more delays and disruptions before this is over.

Npr Transportation Correspondent, Joel Rose. Thank you, Joel. You're welcome. And that's Up First for Wednesday, October 29th. I'm Leila Fauden.

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