The Florida Roundup - DOGE audits Orange County, property tax reform, open carry, tropics update, and remembering El Faro

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke with Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings about the recent state audits into the county’s spending (00:00). Then, we spoke about how the state’s DOGE efforts relate to property tax reform with Florida TaxWatch President Dominic M. Calabro (08:04) and later, Douglas Soule, Your Florida state government reporter (19:42). Plus, we spoke with a pub owner about why he won’t allow guns onsite despite Florida's new open carry rules (24:52). We also checked in with FPREN Meteorologist Megan Borowski for an update on the tropics (29:46). And later, Maeve McGoran, reporter and host of a new podcast that explores what went wrong in the sinking of the El Faro, joined us (37:36).

The Florida Roundup is sponsored by Covering Florida Navigator program, providing confidential assistance with health insurance enrollment through the health insurance marketplace. Assistance is available at 877-813-913 or coveringflora.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Danny Rivera. Despite what you heard, Tom Hudson is out this week. The state of Florida runs on. property taxes the money for your local schools your local police department fire department park systems social services etc a huge chunk of that money comes from

taxing property owners based on what that property is worth but a dual effort is taking place right now that's challenging the premise of the system the so-called Department of Government Efficiency led by Republican CFO Blazingolia is is investigating local government spending and calling on governments to slash property taxes. And at the same time, the Florida legislature is pushing ahead with a proposal that could eliminate property taxes altogether if voters approve it. How are these two efforts converging? And what does it mean for the future of Florida? And if it all pans out, who could save money and who could end up paying more? joining me first to discuss this is orange county mayor jerry demings mayor demings thanks for coming on um first question

the the doge team and cFO blazingolia declared this month that they consider almost two hundred million dollars in the orange county budget as excessive wasteful spending in their words and ingolia called on the county to slash property taxes in response what was your immediate reaction to that announcement and the buildup to it Well, I'm not quite sure what the context was of the comments made by the CFO, but he's an outsider coming into our community who didn't really have any conversation or communication with me or senior officials in the county to learn perspective on what we are doing and some of the challenges that we have as a community. Every county in Florida is unique, and you have to understand the dynamics of what's happening in that county before you make some assumptions about spending, budgets, etc. Orange County is the 11th lowest taxing county within the state of Florida out of 67 counties, and so we already have a relatively low taxing rate. But we have a challenge that no other county has in Florida, and that is we have 75.3 million visitors who come here that we have to also provide services to on top of the 1.5 plus million people who call Orange County home.

And, you know, to that point, Doge says that since 2020, the general fund budget in Orange County has increased by over half a billion dollars. and they point to the fact they say only 79,000 new residents have moved to Orange County. And the CFO also pointed to other numbers, like 600 new employees have been hired and wage increases have gone up to lay out his claims that there's a lot of waste. As you mentioned, there is that tourism factor. Was that considered in this process? Well, I don't think it was considered by the CFO because I think he gets. out our population growth numbers wrong as well. If you go to their own website, when they look

at the University of Florida Bieber report numbers, the growth for Orange County over the period of time that they said they were reviewing was $125,000, not the $79,000 that they indicated. Secondly, I think that there were some interfund transfer accounting lines within what they looked at that resulted likely in them double counting funds. I don't think that they had a sophisticated understanding of what the budget looks like. Thirdly, Orange County is the only county in the state of Florida that has an independently elected auditor called the Comptroller. in our county, that's Phil Diamond, and all checks that are written on behalf of our county, our electronic fund transfers are done by the comptroller. And the comptroller has this responsibility to review and make sure that whatever is being paid

is consistent with our procurement practices and agreements that are in place. And I'm sure that we do, if you look at our annual all, Every year, our audit demonstrates that we don't take in more money than what the tax structure allows. We set the taxation of the property appraiser is the one who values the properties and the tax collector is the one who collects the taxes and the control is the one who manages it through the budget. So we have a check and balance system here. So there's no case where we are misspending or misappropriating dollars, but like all divisions of government and business, sometimes there are some mistakes made from time to time

and how actions occur. And we're not infallible in that regard. There may be some minor instances where something we paid too much for something and go right sorry to butt in um you know you were just hinting at it i suppose but but you know did did being under this microscope affect the budgeting process that you just went through in orange county at all when it comes to looking for efficiencies looking for things that could be done better listen my style of leadership has been one of government efficiency we didn't really need those to come in to tell us that we need to look for efficiencies that

That's been part of my motto since I've been the mayor, the CEO of this county is to challenge our employees on an annual basis to look for inefficiencies to make certain that we're spending the people's money where we should be spending it. We didn't really need the Doge process. And plus, they came in and announced from the beginning what they were going to find. And so I don't know anyone that ever starts an audit or an investigation, an objective audit or an objective investigation with the end in mind. So they tainted the whole process in the beginning.

So this is just a sham that is being done by the CFO and the state to justify their desire to reduce Avaloran taxes in the state of Florida. And Mayor, we only... That in and of itself may not be all bad to reduce Avaloran taxes, but you have to do it in a responsible way. Mayor, we only have a few seconds. I'm sorry. Before we go, though, do you have any big plans next year, say, in November? There are rumors you might be running for higher office. I very well might. I'm doing my due diligence at this time, and I'll make an announcement soon. Jerry Demings is the mayor of Orange County. Mayor, thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you very much. turning now to continue talking about property taxes and doge is florida tax president florida tax president dominic calabro dominic thanks for coming on absolutely thank you very much for having me so dominic why is the state legislature having this conversation now about potentially eliminating property taxes you know there's a there's a legitimate concern about rising property taxation for last several years. I mean, we've got the numbers. It's a text which just did a report on it. Again, we're not partisan. We're not pro-Republican, pro-Democrat. We're pro-Florida citizens and Florida taxpayers. I first want to thank Mayor Demmings for his public service through these many

years. And I always welcome anyone who puts their name and themselves at the service of the people of Florida. So that would be a wonderful venture there. We've noticed that the property taxes have grown considerably faster than the combination of statewide population and inflation combined. You know, there are opportunities for substantial savings. And I'll say this, I don't know if it's fraud, you know, waste, abuse per se, but I do believe that every time Florida tax watches been usually invited to come into a local community from Jacksonville, Hillsborough County, Pensacola, some other communities. We've often found somewhere between 8 to 12% opportunity to economize. I'd say that Florida Tax Watch itself can economize substantial savings itself.

I mean, every organization, if you don't, then you're not intellectually honest. Right. And Dominic. To start with. Is the idea here with the proposal to eliminate property taxes to reduce taxes in general or just to change who and what is taxed? Yes, a really good question. I think the idea it's not feasible nor practical to eliminate all property taxes, nor would I say advisable. It would be a boon. If you gave some voters the opportunity, they might say, sure. and let the legislature, you know, you folks figure out how in the God's green earth you're going to pay for some core function service like police, fire, protection, health, schools, and so forth.

So, but I do think that there's a lot of people, particularly young people, first homebuyers, some seniors and like are really facing it. Right now, under Saber homes, we shift as kind of what you're intimating. One trillion. That's a that's a thousand billion dollars of taxable value from homesteaded properties to renters, small businesses, those down second and third homes, foreign nationals and the like. So we already shift a trillion dollars of taxable value. We are concerned for to tax watch about what the tax shift will be because when I think our opportunities to but there ought to be ways of making sure you provide that good stewardship and balance both ways. So I do know when Tax Watch does studies of this nature, it takes us more than a few days.

It takes us usually a few weeks. We go in, we usually have cooperation and collaboration, but nonetheless, there are certain things that you can economize on administratively and yet still respect the uniqueness of each community to do with the, the, the, The voters support their elected representatives to do on their behalf. But inefficiency is not really something that liberals or conservatives want. We want to get rid of inefficiencies. Right. And I think both parties should seek to do that.

You know, when we think about what kind of tax system we might have on the backside if some form of property taxes is gutted, I mean, what would that mean grocery bills or the cost of buying clothes or a new TV could just be taxed? tax more to make up for what's lost by that property tax? You know, I'm not sure. Right now, the governor said he would veto any increase in the sales tax. So that would be, you know, one of the major, major sources. I mean, I don't see how you get from here to there by eliminating entire swaths of property taxes.

Tax Watch has just produced five major different kind of scenarios. One option is prioritizing eliminate property taxes for senior Florida homeowners. Another is for eliminated property tax for Florida homeowners except for school property taxes. I know this is the lower property taxes for Florida homeowners. But the bottom line of it is, look, property taxes is one of the few taxes Floridians pay that they really find difficult to understand. They're not very, it's not very accountable. You know, the mayor talked about how the tax collector collects the tax,

the property praises, the value. The bottom line is that the city council or the county commission actually levies the tax. What seriously happened in the last many years now, the taxing authorities, whether it's the county, the school district, but particularly the cities and counties, They have not rolled the rate back, according to the millage rollback rate under Florida law, sufficient to offset these massive increases in valuation. It's part of the benefit of Florida's growth.

We're paying for our success. That is that dirt has gone through the roof. The value of Florida property in many markets, especially in Orlando area, has just risen so fast as quickly that it's hard to keep up. And Dominic, to that point, you know, many local governments take out loans for infrastructure projects, building a new library, a new road, et cetera, based on those property values going up and their ability to tax them. What could it mean for the credit ratings of local governments if an entire principal source of their revenue goes away? That's a really thoughtful question. I think it's a very important one.

there's bond, bond in indebtedness, bond obligations that have to be met in these covenants have got to be met. So it's a very, very serious concern. Florida currently enjoys a AAA bond rating in part because the two CFO, chief financial officer of state of Florida, Jamie Petronus, the one prior to current CFO and the one before him, Matt Water, kind of acknowledged Florida's triple A bond rating in part because of the watchdog role of Florida tax watch. So that's a consideration of tax, which is bringing to the fore.

We're going to bring that up to the legislature. And I think a lot of the legislative leaders, particularly both the Senate and the House, are very seriously concerned that we don't write checks we cannot cash, meaning we don't make commitments that are unsustainable and that have seriously, serious unintended negative consequences. So you've got to balance these things out. But number one, it is true. Property taxes have risen far faster than people's ability to pay, both for homeowners, but especially for non-home-centered properties. We want to provide some

thoughtful balance. And I think there's got to be a better way of making the rollback rate, the truth in millage, to be really truthful, really honest, and have some real teeth. Because that's where it happens year for year for year. We've got to control property taxes and also bring down local government spending. We've spent too much on bureaucracy and salaries of local, particularly top elected officials, is unsustainable. And to that effect, is the Doge effort to scrutinize how local governments spend money helping in these conversations to talk about rolling back some former property taxes? I think ultimately any time we look at ways to be more efficient, more economical, it's always beneficial. I think it would be helpful.

to have a consistent format that you could look at things going into it. So everyone kind of knows what we're looking at. And there's a consistent language, consistent set of standards. So Florida taxes will probably be developing. We're going to be developing local regions across state. One will be in the Orlando region in the not too distant future. But we like to have these gold standards that we could look at fiduciary performance of counties and cities. particular, our larger cities, and say, are you meeting these kind of gold standards of good fiscal management and good performance? And that is a meaning going to the cheapest and lowest common denominator. That means creating real value, customer service, good quality police fire,

good public health, good public schools, and the like. So I think it's a good quality life at an affordable level that people can live and enjoy. And last question here, we only have a few seconds. Do you believe that 60% of voters would approve this if it does go on to the ballot in 2026, some version of this? Well, the problem is I don't know. We don't know what the proposal is, and it's really, it could go all over the gamut. I was at a news thing yesterday, and someone said that these would all go down because, you know, these core functions of government have to be paid for it. It's true. But people are frustrated. They're frustrated with government at all different kind of levels and they hate of all this taxes they do pay uh state local taxes

they have consistently the last 45 years i've been running florida tax which they've consistently said they find property tax to be the least not only understandable but the least fair and the most thank thank thank you we've been talking with florida tax watch president dominic calabro dominic thank you so much for coming on take care thank you coming up on the florida roundup more on property taxes. And also, Florida's new reality as an open carry state. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. The Florida Roundup is sponsored by Covering Florida Navigator program, providing confidential assistance with health insurance enrollment through the health insurance marketplace.

Assistance is available at 877-813 or coveringflora.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Danny Rivera. Next week on this program, how things are heating up this hurricane season. This week, property taxes. We've been talking about how property tax reform might look. It's a topic pushed by Governor Ron DeSantis who says he wants property taxes to be eliminated. But the elimination of property taxes would require approval from Florida voters. Douglas Sol of the your state, your Florida state government reporting team was in Tallahassee this week as lawmakers dove into this topic. Doug, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. So what was the general mood in Tallahassee this week on this topic? Were Republican lawmakers

all on board for eliminating property taxes in some form? Or was there skepticism? Well, there's never a general mood in Tallahassee, Danny. Definitely not in the capital. It's a pretty quirky place. But on Monday and Tuesday, when House lawmakers were in, it was clear they planned to pass something down the line. They don't know. what yet, a straight-up elimination of the property tax would be a huge thing, but there are also a lot of things being discussed that would only reduce it, which is so big, of course. The House Republicans in charge are saying they're going to put a proposal or two on the 2026 election ballot, where voters ultimately will have to approve any tax changes. Now, we also have to wait

to see what the Senate will want to do and whether they can agree with what the House wants to do. And one of the reasons lawmakers have given about why they want to tackle property taxes is that they question how local governments spend that money that comes from property taxes, which is also what Doge is doing, the Department of Government Efficiency. What kind of feedback have local officials given to the legislature on this topic? You know, let's fill a context here. Budgeting for local governments is required to be a transparent process conducted in the sunshine, as they say. Local governments... Out in the open in the public. Yes, yes. Local governments and local government groups talk to lawmakers in the capital

this week. They made sure to point out the in place practices they have in deciding how much to spend and on what. They also say local elected officials work closely with their communities when figuring out spending priorities. If the community isn't happy, they can make that clear at a meeting or at a ballot box come at re-election time. And did lawmakers discuss what the potential impact of cutting property taxes could mean for things like funding schools, police departments and fire departments? Yeah, that came up. It came up a lot, actually. The co-chair of the Property Tax Committee, Representative Vicki Lopez, said the services citizens receive in the event of a property tax reduction would probably be impacted. But she emphasized that in her mind. They're trying

to be good fiscal stewards here. Republicans say some communities are overspending. And Lopez also emphasized that it's ultimately up to the citizens to prove any changes, since they have to be proposed constitutional amendments. One more thing on this topic, though, the Florida Policy Institute, it's a nonprofit group, looked into one of the options, getting rid of the tax on people's primary homes, their homestead properties. That's certainly something Governor Ron DeSantis would like, but the group reported it would cost county, cities, and school districts around $18.5 billion every year. Right. And I saw there was a report given by the Florida Association of Counties that found only 35% of property taxes come from

homesteaded property owners. And if that was eliminated, that would basically be shifted to property renters and businesses, right? Yeah, I mean, with all of this, there's a huge concern from local governments on this topic of where they would find that money or if they would just have to cut things out right to make up for the loss of funds. You know, homestead properties, depending on the county. And in every county, they contribute a substantial amount of revenue, some more than others. And every county would have to tighten their belts to be sure. And you talked with Margie Morrison Richardson, who owns a home in Carabelle on the panhandle. She says high property taxes are forcing her to consider leaving the state. Let's listen to what

she said. I believe that after you get to her name, you've paid your debt. You know, give us a break. We work hard. We've paid our taxes. Is it just property taxes that Margie's worried about here, or is there more? Not at all. While she's obviously opposed to what she's paying in property tax, she's paying a good amount more in homeowners insurance. She wishes the state government would take on that, too. She's paying so much for insurance that, when mixed with the tax,

her and her husband obviously don't believe they can live the retirement lifestyle. They want to live. In total, they're paying a grand a month just on homeowners insurance, flood insurance, and property insurance. Now, Margie, she doesn't want to leave, but nevertheless, she has a for-sale sign outside of her home. She says that it's hard to find a buyer, though,

because prices are so sky-high. Douglas Sol is your Florida state government team reporter. Doug, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Up until Thursday, Florida was one of the only states in the U.S. not to allow the open carrying of a firearm that put Republican-led Florida

uncomfortably right alongside the Democratic strongholds of New York, California, Illinois, in Washington, D.C. as the only places that banned the practice. But this week, that changed. And it was not because of a law that was passed, but because of a state appeals court that ruled that Florida's open carry ban was unconstitutional. Florida had been defending its law, but after the decision Attorney General James Uthmeyer announced he would stop defending it, And that means open carry just became the law of the land without any debate or without any vote by elected representatives. So what does it mean for Florida to be an open carry state now? Joining me to talk about this new reality is Max Doyle.

He's the owner of Celtic Ray, an Irish pub in Punta Gorda. Max, thanks for being with us. Hey, you're welcome. So Max, I want to talk about your business, Celtic Ray. your business was the scene of a shooting some time ago what can you tell us about that shooting and how that's shaping your perspective on this topic yeah sure

definitely not something that happens at our place at all but I happen to be there that night and there was a guy that came in kind of out of place I doubt we were his destination but he just kind of ended up there later on I had heard that he got kicked out of two or three other bars in town

and just ended up at our place. And he proceeded to hit on a couple of females, and he's kind of aggressive, I guess. And our bartender refused to serve him because he was obviously impaired from somewhere else. And he didn't like that too much. So he got in his car and drove off. And upon driving off, he fired some gunshots in the air

and a couple of those bullets hit our building. Wow. And, you know, with that as the context for your particular business and yourself, I mean, what were your initial thoughts when you heard Florida would become an open carry state? And you might have people walking in with guns on their waist and a holster. First off, it's really no surprise. But I'm okay with it as long as a, you know, but not in an environment where alcohol is served. It's just, you know, we don't have a lot of problems, to be honest. Not a lot of fights or anything, but, you know, alcohol, you know, people, there's still people out there that can't handle their alcohol and get heated up and, you know, pressing a, squeezing a trigger is just a lot easier than, you know, throwing a punch or, you know, stabbing somebody, I guess. So, I mean, I don't know. And so how are you handling this in your, in your business? Are you asking people not to come in with their, with their, you know, brandished firearms or what, what, how are you responding to it as?

a business owner. So far, it's not really been an issue. It hasn't come up. So we haven't had to be proactive on it. But yeah, I would prefer people not have guns when they come in. Right. I mean, there are some exceptions to the Florida Open Carry. Like there, you can't brandish a firearm at a school, in a courtroom, etc. Do you feel some consideration should be given to bars or places of yourself? Absolutely. We're getting some emails from Julie, who sent this note to us from the Treasure Coast. She said, I plan to protest this new law by leaving whatever business I'm in when I see

someone open carrying a gun. I will also politely tell whoever's in charge, why? When are our rights going to be protected? It feels like both the U.S. and Florida governments had declared war on us. governor ronda santis had this to say on thursday in miami as a state open carry went into effect when you say that the sky's going to fall if you have open carry well i can look at 40 plus other states that have it and i haven't seen the sky fall what what's your response to the governor saying that do you think i don't know are you

okay with it on some level you said you're you're more or less okay but um I'm just curious your thoughts. This is America. Second Amendment, you know, it's what we sign up for. It's part of the package. I just think it should be, you know, like you said, regulated in certain areas and it'd be okay in other areas. You know, if I went into Publix and I saw somebody who opened carry, it's fine. But, you know, at a bar, that's a little different. Max Doyle is the owner of the Irish pub, Celtic Ray in Punta Gorda.

Max, thanks so much for joining us. You're very welcome. Turning now to the Atlantic, hurricane season seems to be picking up pace this week. Megan Barowski of the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network joins us now. Megan, thanks for coming on. Absolutely. It's great to be here. So there's a few storms we're keeping our eyes on going into this weekend. There's a disturbance that could become Hurricane Imelda if it gains strength and Hurricane Umberto a little further out.

What do we need to know about these systems? All right. So the one that we're watching right now is called Invest 94. It's not even an area of low pressure yet. It's just a bunch of disorganized thunderstorms. But we do expect it to move northward toward the Bahamas and likely become a tropical depression this weekend. It should track northward parallel the Florida coast. It looks like right now the impacts that are most likely are actually going to be for the mid-Atlantic coastline. But for Florida markets and audiences, the main thing we need to think about as this system, attempts to develop our beach hazards along the Atlantic. So rough surf, rip currents, beach erosion, maybe a little bit of coastal flooding. But that's the main thing right now. I'm Danny Rivera,

and you're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. So many experts predicted this season would have an above average amount of name storms. But the season has been pretty quiet up to now. Are things picking up pace, Megan? Yeah. I mean, right now we do have three systems in the basin or three potential systems. We have Gabrielle now that's a post-tropical cycle and we've got Hurricane Umberto and then we've got Invest 94L. So lots of things going on. We are in that peak time of hurricane season, anywhere from mid-August to mid-October. So we're smack dab in the middle of it. I'm not surprised to see activity start to pick up. And, you know, last year we had our H-storm form during the September months. So we're pretty much on track.

I would not be surprised if the forecast does verify for our total number of storms. So far this season, we've had eight storms, three of which were hurricanes and two of those were major hurricanes. So, you know, we do have two full months remaining. And I do expect things at least for the next week or so to stay active, especially as we're monitoring this invest that's approaching the Bahamas. You know, and I'll confess myself this week, I've felt myself almost breathing a sigh of relief. It felt like we weren't really going to have.

a hurricane season, but it is almost October and a lot of other Floridians might be feeling the same way in terms of hurricanes. What should we know now to stay prepared about what might be coming? Yeah, I would say just never get lulled into a false sense of security, right? I mean, I find myself sometimes being like, oh, wow, it's been quiet so far. Maybe we'll get through this season without impacts. But yeah, you know, we're coming out of the summertime season, so the ocean is very warm, and all it takes is one tropical wave to eject off of Africa or a little disturbance to spin up in the Caribbean, and then we can have problems. So in no way, shape, or form are we in the clear yet?

We still have to get through October, and even November, we've seen storms impact Florida just a couple years ago. Nicole occurred, if memory serves me correct, I believe that storm impacted us in November. So nothing to panic about, of course, but I would say as we continue to track through, this hurricane season. Just make sure that you've got your plans in place. You've got your kit well stocked. And you know what you do if a storm is impacting your immediate area. And remind us again, when is the technical end of hurricane season? November 30th. So we've got a ways to go. Right. And how common are those November storms in particular? You typically see it. It

start to fall off after we get through the October months or the weeks in October. You know, They're not out of the question, but we typically see activity really start to taper off once we get asked mid to late October. But don't forget, I mean, we had Hurricane Michael in October. Superstorm Sandy was around Halloween time. So, again, not out of the realm of possibility. Some people have suggested that two of the storms in the Atlantic could see the Fujiwara effect. Can you explain to us what exactly is that? And what's your take on whether it could be something that happens here?

Right. So what we're looking at is Umberto and then also if Invest 94 develops. We could have those two storms interacting. And the Fujiwara effect, it's named after the scientist who studied it and developed or studied the actual effect itself. And layman's terms, you know, if you have two tropical cycles close enough to one another, they can start to dance around or rotate around each other. Sometimes I like to describe it as if you've ever been to the circus, think way back to when you were a kid, a good visual is like the of destiny or the wheel of death, I think Ringling Brothers calls it, where you've got like the two circles almost revolving around one another. That's the best way that I like to describe it. But there's things that can influence if this does happen. The distance between the storms, it looks like we might be in the sweet spot for that if the invest develops. And then the relative strength, the stronger storm could pull the weaker storm toward it. Right now, it does look like Umberto is going to be the stronger storm. So we might actually have Umberto pull this invest to the east. There's a lot of uncertainty, again, because the actual center of low pressure around Invest 94 has not yet developed.

So we're going to see the models fluctuate a little bit. Right now, the consensus, though, as of the latest runs, is that this wave will track northward, paralleling the Florida coastline and potentially impact South Carolina or North Carolina early next week. You said the words, wheel of death, which freaks me out a little bit. Right. What parts of the state need to be on alert this week? weekend early into next week, if at all, if we're getting any residual impact from these. I would say we don't necessarily need to have alarm bells blaring off. One thing to keep in mind is

we do have a front that is stalling over north central Florida. And that's going to keep rain chances elevated. And so we could have, you know, our typical sea breeze storms supplemented by that front and we could get pockets of localized flooding. That won't be too much of a tropical thing. That's more of a cold front thing that we have to think about. But in terms of from this wave as it's developing everyone along the Atlantic coast should just be on guard if you're going to be going to the beach. The rough surf, the rip currents, you know, they can be deadly, of course. So just keep that in mind if you are going to the beaches. If there's a red flag flying, do not go out. And if you're going to be boating, make sure you check conditions and make sure that you can handle it if you're

going out because it will be quite rough out there this weekend into early next week. Is there any good weather news out there? It's been a very wet, wet season down here. here in South Florida. Well, I mean, the good news is so far is that this invest should stay off our coastline. So I think, you know, that's a little bit of silver lining there. And, you know, the other, I guess, potential silver lining is the fact that we are getting a decent rainy season over South Florida. It's a little bit of a different story up to the north.

But that should keep things, at least in the first part of dry season, keep things quiet for us because we all know that we can deal with bad wildfires as we get into the spring months. Megan Borowski of the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. Thank you so much, Megan. Absolutely. I'm Danny Rivera, and you're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. The Florida Roundup is sponsored by Covering Florida Navigator Program,

providing confidential assistance with health insurance enrollment through the health insurance marketplace. Assistance is available at 877-813 or Coveringflora.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Danny Rivera. Ten years ago next week, one of the worst marine disasters in American history took place in the Bahamas. 33 crew members of the container ship, the SS Alfato, found themselves in the middle of a category four hurricane. The ship was headed out of Jacksonville where much of the crew was based, and it was headed to Puerto Rico, an island dependent on cargo ships from the mainland U.S. The new Audible podcast called Shipwreck details the many different layers of this tragedy,

from a corporate culture of putting off needed ship repairs to anxieties about the state of the shipping industry that made for toxic dynamics among the crew to lapses of oversight by federal regulators, and a century-old law that keeps the outdated shipping industry in the U.S. alive. What emerges is a spell-binding portrait of tragedy. Maeve McGorren is the reporter and host of the podcast, and she joins me now in our Miami studios. Maeve, thanks for coming in. Thank you so much for having me. So, Mae, before we talk about the tragedy itself that left 33 people dead, that's marking its 10-year anniversary next week, what can you tell us about the crew members on that ship, who were largely based in Jacksonville and other parts of Florida?

The crew was very diverse, but it was very stratified. So the crew members were representative of Florida and everywhere else. The officers were all white. Many were from New England. And they kept very, very separate from each other. And they didn't even eat together. And at the very top was the captain, who was one of the former officers told me he was like the god. We considered the captain the god of the ship.

It was a pyramid structure, I'll put it that way. So it's very top-heavy. And that, you know, hierarchical structure really becomes a throughline and a lot of the problems that emerged that you really explore in this podcast. Let's listen to a clip from your shop from your podcast shipwreck. This is Tina Ream, the widow of El Faro, third mate Jeremy Ream. He knew that ship. He knew his job. He knew like the back of his hand.

That was like his gift. Tina Ream is Jeremy's wife. She vividly remembers the day he brought her to visit the El Faro. Its massive blue hull stretched the length of two football fields. And as soon as I got to the ship, I was overwhelmed how huge it was. It was so huge. It was huge and scary for me. And I went up to the house, the bridge.

It was so high to be up at the top of the ship. The El Faro's top deck sat about three stories above the water line. The house was a tall. white structure where the crew slept and ate with the bridge at the very top, the Alfaro's nerve center. The watch team's conversations range from taking care of business to ship gossip to the history of the islands they're sailing by. But they always come back to one topic. The hurricane along their route and the danger they're heading towards. Jeremy's wife Tina has spent a lot of time pondering how they reacted to everything. Even in that stressful,

possibly knew they weren't going to survive, they all didn't freak out, and they were all still being professionals about it. We're going to fight for our life, but we're going to do it in a professional manner, which I found that was impressive, because me, I would have been freaking out. Of all the people on that ship, he was the first one. It seemed to me to realize something was up. Yes, his intuition kicked in. He knew something was up. So, Maeve, what emerges through the course of this podcast is what I found to be a deep psychological study of what happened, the workplace dynamics, the corporate culture. And a big question you tackled throughout is, why was there not a mutiny on El Faro as they sailed into a hurricane? And in fact, federal investigators wondered the same thing after the fact.

What can you tell us about that haunting question and what you found? There was a fear of complaining. There was a fear of, you know, there had recently been an incident where on another ship, an officer had been found asleep on duty. And the people who reported this did it anonymously when it was found out who they were. They were the ones who basically got in trouble over that. So that's kind of what was going on. In addition, the bigger culture, as I said, the captain was the God.

No one questioned him. Five different officers tried to persuade him to change course to one extent or another. And he kind of blew them all off. And when they talked to him, they talked among themselves. They were very concerned. They were worried about this hurricane. They knew the trouble they were sailing into. but they were very timid when they addressed the captain.

And you reconstructed everything that happened on board using transcripts that came from the black box. The audio was not made available by the federal government. What was it like hearing those voices on paper come alive? It was definitely strange for me. What I really worried about was what it would be like for the families when the show would come out. I've only heard back from a couple of the families, but, you know, one of them said that the second maid, Danielle Randolph, was very beloved by her friends. And one of her close friends emailed me that he said it was like she was back for a brief

moment. So that was really touching to hear that. And this ship, the SS Alfato, was extremely old and outdated when it came to safety upgrades and even things like the lifeboats that it had on the board. What did investigators find about, we know, the factors that went into this? It was incredible what they found. As luckily for the investigators, there was another ship, a sister ship, almost identical in every way. So they did a thorough investigation of that ship thinking it was probably comparable.

And when the Coast Guard held hearings about this, they put up on the screen photographs of, they were investigating a section of the ship near some vents. And the photograph that they put up on the screen was a finger going right through the steel in an area surrounding these vents. So they said the regular investigators, not the master investigators, excuse me, inspectors, not the master inspectors, you know, they said to them, let's open this whole section up, let's go inside. And they're like, oh, it's painted shut. We never open it. And so they were left assuming it was probably the same. The private inspector, sorry, took over the inspection. They determined the ship was fine to sail, went back on the water, went sail through the Panama Canal, up to the, up the west coast, to a shipyard where it was supposed to get some work done. The shipyard found it was riddled through. The steel was in a horrible shape. and they took the ship off the water. I'm Danny Rivera, and you're listening to the Florida Roundup

from your Florida Public Radio Station. So, Maeve, the official investigation found that the captain Michael Davidson was at fault, but that also the shipping company, Toad was at fault, and a private inspection company, and the Coast Guard itself. How rare was that for the federal government to admit fault, and did that make a difference at all in the end? I don't honestly know how, rare it is, but it was a big surprise when it happened. It turned out that about a decade before

the ship had gone through some big changes. This is typically an opportunity for the Coast Guard to come in and order safety upgrades. The Coast Guard approved the changes, didn't order the safety upgrades. And years later, during this investigation, they said, we were wrong. Had we done that, perhaps this ship would not have sunk. And it was very emotional for the families to hear this. what I found was in the years after that, the Coast Guard reneged on that. They went back. They said, you know what, we've changed our mind. We don't think we made a mistake.

We think we were acted properly. And, you know, the implication being, therefore, we're not at fall for this. There were a number of safety upgrades that they agreed to after this that in the subsequent years, I was, I don't think this has been reported before. for our podcast, in the subsequent years, they changed their mind about. So a lot of the things that people thought would be done have not been done. And how would the families respondent to that?

They don't know, they've just found out. I mean, they found out through our podcast. I haven't talked to anybody yet about their thinking on that. So that's something I need to do. Wow, and there is a monument to the, you know, the tragedy of the 33 lives taken by the SSL Fado. Can you tell us where that is? It's, you know, there's a series of monuments.

They're very beautiful monuments. One is in Jacksonville, and there's an identical monument in Puerto Rico. The one in Jacksonville is right along the St. John's River at a point the Alfaro would have passed it on its last voyage. And there's a miniature lighthouse, Elfaro means lighthouse in Spanish, a miniature lighthouse, and little separate monuments to each of the crew members. And I went by with the widow of Frank Ham, who was the helmsman, when the ship sank, and the sister of another member of the crew. And it was really touching. She comes, they go by all the time. They told me that people come and leave all kinds of things, little, you know, flowers, things that had obviously personal meaning to the person who was lost.

And it was very, very moving. It's a beautiful spot. And, Maeve, where can people hear? this podcast. It's on Audible. If you're not an Audible member, you can get it, and I think they have some kind of a deal that you can hear it and just go to Audible.com slash the word shipwreck. It really is a phenomenal podcast. I did not watch any of my shows this week. I binged listened to the podcast all week. So thank you so much for putting it together. Maeve McGoran is the reporter and host of the podcast Shipwreck. You can find it on Audible.

Mave, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. And that'll about be our program for today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF in Tampa. The show is produced by Bridget O'Brien and Denise Royal. WLRN's vice president of radio is Peter Mayors. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith.

Our engineering help from Doug Peterson, Ernesto J. and Jackson Harb. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at Aaron Leibos.com. If you've missed any of today's show, you can download it in past programs on the NPR app. Thank you for calling so much, and thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.