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The Situation Room

Shutdown's Impact on Air Travel?; Hurricane Melissa Slams Caribbean. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 28, 2025 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: They're urging the attorney general to deem those clemencies invalid and to consider charges against some of Biden's aides.

[11:00:04]

Biden has strongly rejected those claims, saying he made all the decisions himself as president of the United States and called Republicans suggesting otherwise, in his word, liars.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Well, today is an exciting day for us. CNN is now streaming in the United States, so that means you can access our award-winning journalism whenever you want in the CNN app and on CNN.com. Just visit CNN.com/watch for more.

BLITZER: And the next hour of THE SITUATION ROOM starts right now.

BROWN: Happening now, breaking news -- quote -- "last chance to protect your life," that is the dire warning from officials as monster Hurricane Melissa tears through the Caribbean.

BLITZER: We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: And we begin this hour with the major breaking news. The eye wall of the most powerful storm on the planet this year pushes ashore in Jamaica, and it's getting even stronger and stronger, Hurricane Melissa now packing sustained winds of 185 miles an hour.

BROWN: This is a live look right here from Jamaica, as that island nation about the size of Connecticut with a population of nearly three million braces for a direct hit.

We have a team of correspondents and meteorologists covering this historic storm.

Let's begin with Derek Van Dam in Kingston, Jamaica.

Bring us there, Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: All right, Pamela, winds have certainly increased here in the nation's capital, but it's a far cry from what the western part of this country is experiencing.

A full-on catastrophe is unfolding slowly across portions of Western Jamaica as we speak. I want to talk to you about this update from the National Hurricane Center that's come in, 185-mile-per-hour winds with a central pressure of 892 millibars.

Remember, pressure is a -- it shows to meteorologists the strength of a storm. This 185-mile-per-hour winds makes it the second strongest storm to ever form in the Atlantic Basin. That is incredible. That's just trailing only behind Hurricane Allen, which was a 190 mile-per- hour storm, and it's tied for the four other storms as the second strongest storm in recorded history.

Let's take a breath and absorb all that information because that gives you an indication, some context of what we're working with, because the storm is making landfall right now over Western Jamaica. So, with those superlatives, with all of those stats I just threw out to you, I know it's a lot of information, but if you could just understand that the most powerful storm of a strengthening hurricane on the upper echelon of what the nature can actually physically create is making landfall as we speak.

Yes, it's gusty. It's windy here. The rain's picked up in -- regardless of -- it's picked up with these bands that are coming through in Kingston. But it is the catastrophic winds that are unfolding right now as the eye makes its way on land over western parishes of Jamaica.

There's St. Elizabeth Parish. there's an area called Treasure Beach that we're particularly concerned about, Mandeville. If you're looking at a map, you will understand. That is the breadbasket of Jamaica. There's a lot of farming that happens there.

Hurricane Beryl from last year devastated the farming industry, economic impacts for so long after that. Now we -- that storm didn't even make landfall. Now we have a Category 5, upper echelon Cat 5, landfalling in that same location.

Not only will we have the catastrophic nature to the storm, but the economic impacts that will be felt for years, if not decades to come. When we're talking about the strength of this system, I mean, just watching the trees sway in the background, that's one thing, but we can also describe it like this.

Often, in these monster Cat 5 hurricanes, we completely strip the foliage from the trees. We often can rip off bark from the sides of trees. It's like having a wall of tornadoes, powerful tornadoes, moving across a very wide landscape, because when you're talking about winds of 185 miles per hour, even higher in upper elevations of the mountains here, that's like equivalent to an EF-3 tornado, but over a much larger space.

So there will be catastrophic damage and, using the National Hurricane Center's wording, potential for full structural loss or failure over portions of where the storm makes landfall, torrential rain, mudslides, landslides and storm surge also part of the equation here, but that, again, is felt west of where we are currently located in Kingston -- Wolf, Pamela.

[11:05:13]

And these are live pictures of the eastern part of Jamaica, as the winds are intensifying, and it's only going to get worse and worse.

Derek Van Dam, all of our photojournalists there, please stay safe. We will stay in close touch with you.

BROWN: All right, let's go to Patrick Oppmann in Cuba, which is also in the path of this powerful storm.

Patrick, walk us through what Cubans are doing to prepare for this hurricane.

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF: They're making their final preparations, and we're talking about the eastern end of Cuba, where hundreds of thousands of people have been carrying out evacuations, have been securing water tanks on the roofs, tiles on the roofs, because that will become shrapnel in the hours ahead, when these very strong winds that Derek was talking about begin to pick up here.

Already -- yesterday was a sunny day. We had people out doing their final bits of shopping, trying to get cash, trying to buy gasoline if they're the lucky few that have generators. Now it really feels like that it's a ghost town in Santiago de Cuba.

People are, for the most part staying close to home. They know they only have hours left, and there are already power outages across much of the city. It's the second largest city in Cuba, and this is a frightening scenario that you have a storm as powerful as this one coming to a large population center, and it's a city that's over 500 years old.

And you have so many buildings when you look around that just don't appear like they can withstand the kinds of power, the kinds of winds, the kinds of devastation that Melissa is likely to bring.

BROWN: All right, Patrick Oppmann, thank you so much. You stay safe as well with your crew.

I want to bring in meteorologist Chris Warren, who is tracking the storm.

What's the latest, Chris?

CHRIS WARREN, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Pamela and Wolf, this nightmare scenario is unfolding right now. As Derek mentioned, this in the Atlantic Basin is as bad as it gets, a strong storm.

It really just can't get, in terms of wind speed, really that much stronger. We are on the high, high end here, 185-mile-per-hour sustained winds with gusts at 220 miles an hour. And that is happening right now. Do you see these colors in here, the yellows, the orange and the red? That is where the most intense winds are happening right now. It's not out here that this is where we're seeing tropical-storm-force winds and even hurricane gusts here, but right in there. This is where it is making landfall right now. Official landfall is when the center gets over land, but it is the edges of it.

So you can think of the center of it once it officially makes landfall, that's just halfway through. That's like halftime. You have got the whole other half of this dangerous hurricane that will make landfall. So you see over here, in Kingston, the winds are sustained at 30. But you don't have to go too far.

And it is somewhat localized where the eye wall comes in, both the front end and the back end of this, where winds, again, gusting stronger than 200 miles an hour. Derek mentioned this region. And I want to go in a little bit closer and show you what we're looking at in terms of what is being impacted and what's really going to take the brunt of this, the front lines, if you will.

This is going to be the center. This is the forecast, Black River, Santa Cruz, Treasure Beach. The eye wall right now is moving through these areas. So they are seeing the destructive winds. There likely will not be structures here, surge coming up, rain coming out of the mountains as well. This is also another wild card.

We're going to be talking a lot about landfall, a lot about the eye wall. But the entire island of Jamaica, eventually Cuba, Pamela and, Wolf will have to deal with the potential for catastrophic flooding as well.

BROWN: Yes, just terrifying. It really is a nightmare.

BLITZER: Yes, it reminds me of the coverage we were doing leading up to Hurricane Katrina as it was moving towards New Orleans. You remember that, I take it, Chris.

How does this compare with Katrina?

WARREN: Well, with Katrina, also, the storm itself was strong, but Katrina also had the issue of failures of structures, right? There's going to be complete devastation of structures. They're not going to exist anymore where this makes landfall.

And, Wolf and Pamela, what this reminded me of was Hurricane Michael. You remember Hurricane Michael and Mexico Beach and what was left. It was absolutely leveled. And just being right there, right where the eye is, I believe it's going to be unrecognizable once we finally get in there and get to see everything.

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: So Jamaica is basically -- what you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, Jamaica is going to be leveled and destroyed.

WARREN: Not the whole island. Not the whole island. I don't want to get that impression, because when you look at the storm itself, it looks like the whole thing is covering the island. And it is. But if we can go -- and I want to show you right here.

So it's this. It's this part of the storm that will be absolutely shredding everything. Unfortunately, we're talking about structures being completely destroyed, where, over here, like -- so I was in -- during Hurricane Michael, Mexico Beach was just obliterated.

[11:10:05]

I was in Pensacola, which wasn't too much -- excuse me -- Apalachicola, which wasn't too much farther away. The destruction, the damage wasn't nearly what it was. So being next to the eye right where the eye is, makes all the difference in the world. Surge and flooding, that's going to be the main life-threatening situation for the rest of Jamaica.

BLITZER: Yes.

BROWN: All right.

BLITZER: Awful situation.

BROWN: Yes, thanks, Chris. We will continue to track that.

And still ahead here in THE SITUATION ROOM, the very real impact of the government shutdown, air traffic controllers now missing their first full paychecks and potential headaches for you if you're trying to fly somewhere today.

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[11:15:06]

BLITZER: Nick Daniels, the president of the air traffic controllers association, is briefing reporters right now -- I want to listen -- on this disastrous situation unfolding for travelers planning to fly in the coming days.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

NICK DANIELS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION: It's reduced the number of aircraft in it.

Day in and day out, air traffic controllers have to have 100 percent of focus 100 percent of the time. And I'm watching air traffic controllers go into work. I'm getting the stories. They're worried about paying for medicine for their daughter.

I got a message from a controller that said: I'm running out of money. And if she doesn't get the medicine she needs, she dies. That's the end. So I'm going to either have to quit this job and take a different one, instead of moving America's passengers through it or the cargo. Now I'm going to have to choose my family and my daughter.

And that is nothing a parent should ever have to deal with, but especially the hardworking men and women that are federal employees across the entire system. But I could tell their stories all day. I could sit up here and tell you time and time again that they should never work a side job, that they should never get off a night shift and then go wait tables and then go move the commerce and people through this airspace.

But you can hear it from an air traffic controller yourself. I will give you Joe Segretto out of N90.

Joe.

JOE SEGRETTO, PRESIDENT, NEW YORK TRACON N90: Thank you, Secretary Duffy and Nick.

I'm going to echo a lot of what those two just said, but the pressure is real. Speaking on behalf of the air traffic controllers in the New York area, the most congested complex airspace arguably in the NAS, the pressure is real.

We have people trying to keep these airplanes safe. We have trainees that are 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.

Just a story that happened to me yesterday, somebody came to me and said: "Joe, I have a question for you."

I said: "What's that?"

"I need your advice. What am I to do? Do I put gas in my car? Do I put food on the table? My wife is out making money. We don't have money for day care. What do I do?"

I didn't have the answers. I said: "I will find out some resolve for you. But as of right now, I don't know what to tell you."

But these are the real problems that air traffic controllers are dealing with on a daily basis.

DANIELS: And, as you heard it, day in, day out, that's now the life of an air traffic controller, the people tasked with making the impossible possible are having it made impossible by not paying them again.

So the message is simple. End the shutdown today. There is no excuse that these hardworking men and women are showing up to do this job and to not ever know when they're going to get paid again. So we need America's help. We need you to stand up and we need you to say, enough is enough in this shutdown and ensure that we can move this forward, because we do not want to be up here telling you the sad stories.

We want to be up here telling you how we're moving this system forward, how we're bringing in more air traffic controllers than ever, how we're modernizing this system to serve the American people.

So, again, we cannot stress enough, if you want to take action, contact your congressional representative and tell them, end the shutdown today. SEAN DUFFY, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: So we will take your

questions in just a second.

Want to give you a few stats. This year, on average, the delays that are associated with staffing triggers with air traffic controllers is 5 percent. On Sunday, 44 percent of the delays were because of staffing shortages. Yesterday, that number was 24 percent.

So we're seeing the numbers move day by day and it's location to location. We saw in the last couple of days LAX. We saw Atlanta. We have seen other airports as well. So we are seeing those problems as we continue to evaluate the airspace.

One last point before I open up to your questions is, you do know that we have a shortage of air traffic controllers. We're about 2,000 to 3,000 controllers short. And we have a strategy together that we have worked on that is going to, I have used the term supercharge, but we are going to bring more of the best and brightest minds in America into our academy to get them through the academy, to get them into towers, to get them certified and trained up.

And the problem we're now seeing is, we have young people in the academy that they actually get a stipend. We pay them a small amount of money so they can go to school and they can make ends meet. That money's about to run out. And we're seeing several of our students drop out of the academy.

So instead of going in the right direction, where you want me to bring you more air traffic controllers, so they have less stress and pressure on them because they have more resources available, human resources available to them, this shutdown is making it harder for me to do the work that is -- this is bipartisan work.

[11:20:10]

Everybody wants this done. There's no one who disagrees with what we're trying to do here, but the shutdown is making it more difficult for me to accomplish those goals. And it's not just the government opens up and I'm able to put it all back together.

This has monthslong effects on our ability to fill that pipeline and get more young people into academies and become professional air traffic controllers. So I just -- I want to let you know that again, even where we're at today, you open it back up and you have created some longer-term problems for me to make sure I deliver for what I promised to all of you, which is more air traffic controllers.

With that, we're happy to take any of the questions you may have for us.

Yes.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) ... air traffic controllers working without pay could deter those efforts to recruit people, and what are you telling people who you're trying to recruit? DUFFY: So our instructors at the academy, they're not being paid. And

the fact that our controllers in the academy may lose their stipend, we tried to plan for this. We tried to preserve as much money as possible. We have about a week left of dollars.

But, yes, no, I'm very concerned about what this does for our pipeline. The president has said, and I agree with President Trump, like we have here, I want the best and the brightest. I want the smartest people to come in and control our airspace.

And if you see that you pick a career where you may not be paid for a partial payment one paycheck, the next paycheck you're not paid and maybe a third, that will make you rethink, do I want to go into this profession? Not only that. When we have new controllers that are being trained up, they don't make a lot of money.

It's a base pay that they get and they're having a hard time making ends meet on the pay itself. You take that minimal pay away and they throw their hands up. They don't know how they're going to navigate it. So this truly can drive people -- and we have seen a few times that it has. It drives people out of a profession where we're trying to build more numbers as opposed to the shutdown taking numbers away from us.

Yes?

If you just want to yell it at me, I don't know -- oh.

QUESTION: Quick question. (OFF-MIKE)

DUFFY: The strike?

DANIELS: I will happily answer that very directly. No, there will be no concerted effort for air traffic controllers to anyway have a job action. It is illegal for us to do such thing, but I will tell you is -- as you just heard Joe say, the problems are mounting daily.

As the secretary is telling you, these are the real stories. They're not just stories. They're real people and real lives of issues that are going to mount every day. When you don't pay people, there's going to be a lot of issues that come with that.

DUFFY: Every single American gets this story. If you have one family member that works and the other one who doesn't, you lose a paycheck, every American knows how hard that is.

And so that's exactly what the controllers are going through. Yes.

QUESTION: Hi. Quick question. You said yesterday it was about 44 percent of delays that were attributed to staffing shortages.

DUFFY: That was on Sunday.

QUESTION: I'm wondering, is that the highest percentage we have reached during the shutdown so far? And how does it compare to last shutdown? DUFFY: So Sunday was 44. Yesterday was 24 percent of delays. We have

seen it in the mid-50s as a percent of delays from staffing shortages. And, again, it's a moving number.

And I'm grateful. I have asked the controllers to show up to work and they have responded. And I think this. We're seeing less problems in the airspace today than we have in prior shutdowns. But I don't have the exact numbers for you on that.

Yes.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to continue to monitor this news conference with the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy. We will tell you if there's more news emerging.

But, right now, I want to bring in the former FAA safety inspector David Soucie.

David, what did you make, first of all, from what you heard from the transportation secretary and from the president of the air traffic controllers association how serious this crisis is, this government shutdown that's affecting air travel?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: It's incredibly serious, Wolf. I don't think anyone questions that whatsoever, either side of the aisle.

What concerns me most, though, is that the FAA has constantly and for years has been used as a leverage tool to get budgets approved. It's always been that way. No one wants to say, hey, we're shutting this down. So in this case, one of the things that bothers me, Wolf, is that they're not thinking of any other alternatives. They're thinking the only fix to this is to get the budget approved. And that's simply not true.

There's -- the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act guarantees that these controllers will be paid as soon as the government's back in order. So they're going to get these paychecks. I want to set the record clear. They're not working for free. That money is still there. It's going to be paid as soon as the government can get their act together.

[11:25:17]

So there is a -- there is a short-term solution, which is to give government loans for them. And they're not even talking about that. They don't even want to talk about those things.

BLITZER: So how is this going to affect, at least in the next few days, while this government shutdown clearly continues, how's it going to affect those of us who are planning on flying around the country?

SOUCIE: Well, as Sean Duffy pointed out, it's not a safety issue, per se. What it is, is a delay issue. It's super inconvenient. It's a problem, but I don't see it creating actual safety issues for those people who do fly and get on their planes. It's going to be terribly inconvenient. There will be canceled flights that will continue to be canceled. And the long-term situation is even worse, as they mentioned before, about the training and some of the desire to even be an air traffic controller if you can't protect your job. So we're going to see short-term inconsistencies and inconveniences.

But, as far as safety, I feel that safety is still going to be maintained.

BLITZER: And very quickly, before I let you go, David, if the government shutdown ends in the next few days, how quickly will it take to resume travel as usual?

SOUCIE: Well, it will resume travel as usual, but, as they said, they're already short 2,000 to 3,000. And I think that number is even low, considering that they're going to have to train for the new systems coming in. So I think it's going to be a while before -- we're still going to see delays.

Could be as long as a year before we actually see it back to normal.

BLITZER: Yes, 2,000 to 3,000 air traffic controllers, that is a lot.

David Soucie, thanks, as usual. Thanks very much for joining us.

SOUCIE: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Pamela.

BROWN: All right, up next here in THE SITUATION ROOM: a woman who says a predator used a hugely popular gaming platform for kids to target, groom and exploit her son before he took his own life.

She will be joining us with her warning to parents.

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