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i love seeing them come back and join the engagement teams and seeing where they go from there, i get to watch their personal growth, it makes my heart happy. (laughs) announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" 'n fraser. 'n this is "the context." >> we can say the storm was significant but thankfully not the worst case scenario. >> they expected a hurricane, not this tornado, and it lifted this neighborhood literally within minutes and caused massive destruction. >> 80,000 people spent last night in shelters rather than in

their own properties and that may have contributed to the relatively small loss of life after what was a very damaging but not quite as catastrophic as feared storm. >> we know from previous hurricanes it is often the case that the more livesre lost in the days following the storm that actually during the storm itself. christian: the cleanup begins in florida as hurricane kate middleton heads off into the atlantic, the second hurricane in as many weeks that will test like a medical for the capacity of the emergency services. 10 people dead, more than 3 million without power. we are live in florida for the latest. also tonight a shapira's response in europe after israeli forces opened fire on human peacekeepers. the italians say it was not by accident. and a flexible working week, the default position under new laws but proposed by the british

labor government. what are employers making of it? all that to,. -- to come. welcome to the program. at least 10 bodies have been recovered from the wreckage and flooding left in the wake of hurricane milton. this was the path it took making landfall late on wednesday, sustained went up to 120 miles per hour, but some of the worst destruction caused by the tornadoes, over 30 of them that touched down ahead of the storm wednesday. the images of a shopping mall in palm beach will give you some sense of what emergency crews are now dealing with. in nearby st. petersburg, more than 45 centimeters of rain fell in a day. the city's drinking water supply has been cut off. over 3 million people in the state are currently without power. and it will not be restored quickly. mobile crews are still dealing with power outages in north carolina left by hurricane helene. in the last hour, the preside

said the u.s. congress should reconvene immediately to approve further disaster relief funding. pres. biden: i think the congress should be coming back and moving on emergency needs immediately. they will have to come back after the election as well. this will be a long haul for total rebuilding. it will take several billion dollars. it will not just be a matter of a little bit. we are fighting now to make sure that people have the emergency relief they need. christian: let's go to florida where our colleague is there. i know it takes some days to get a full picture of what has unfolded here but having traveled around the state today what is your impression? >> we have really been here on the east coast. in the early morning we saw some of the relief and recovery efforts in real time. we saw the line men who were heading truck after truck to the west coast, they are to assess the damage and then restore

power to some of the areas impacted. we came here to wellington because we were here yesterday around 5:00 local when we heard there was a tornado alert oa few streets away. we packed up and left and we wanted to come back because we heard there was severe destruction here. i want you to look down the street here where the devastation really is extraordinary. we have seen pretty much every house hit. the tornado tearing through this neighborhood in minutes. they have been here all day cleaning up debris. these are screen from the back porches. they have these structures that have the steel beams and screens to protect them. we have seen people all over the neighborhood cleaning up today, taking these pieces of debris, bringing them to the front, and look at this foliage. this is all vegetation that fell from the tornado, ripped out of the ground. we talked to some people who

were not expecting this. they were told to prepare for hurricane milton not passing through the area, some wind, some rain, but not this incredible tornado that was so devastating. we spoke to one family who was hiding out in the bathroom when the tornado hit, talking on the door. they cannot afterwards to see their entire back area have been completely devastated. it been remarkable to see here, people have banded together. the early hours of this morning, people arrived and just started picking up debris, taking it to the front yard so it can be carted away. really remarkable. this is the east coast. we know the store made landfall on the west coast of florida and that exactly where we have seen that flash flooding, storm surges in places like sarasota and orlando. my colleague sarah smith have been looking at the impact in orlando. here is her report. >> a deadly tornado ripped

through st. lucie county, many miles from where the worst of the storm was expected to hit. this utterly mangled metal structure trapped in the county sheriff's vehicles inside, hampering the response. there were over 100 twisters spawned by hurricane milton that tore up and done parts of florida, further spreading the damage. but as bad as it looks, the state was prepared for worse. >> the storm was significant but thankfully this was not the worst case scenario. the storm didn't weaken before landfall and the storm surge as initially reported has not been as significant overall. >> in tampa, police body cam footage shows the operation to rescue 15 people including children after a tree crashed into this house. in the nearby city of venice, the widespread scale of the destruction became obvious after the sun came up after a savage battering overnight. despite the damage you can see,

the impact of hurricane milton is much less than had been feared. obviously, that's a relief. that doesn't mean that there will not be highly politicized arguments know about the efforts to help people that need it most. tropical storm helene, only two weeks ago, devastated parts of florida, georgia, and the carolinas, reading a slew of disinformation and conspiracy theories. president biden has borne that out right lies are undermining rescue efforts. pres. biden: they say money needed for these crises are being diverted to migrants. what are they talking about? it is outrageous. it is just not true. >> as residents start cleaning up, they have been promised the u.s. government will send whatever help is needed but the imminent presidential election is encroaching. just listen to this response from donald trump. >> hopefully on january 20, you will have somebody that will help you like never before, because help is on the way.

together, we will rebuild, recover, and come back stronger, bigger, better than ever before. >> torn fragments are all that is left after the hurricane shredded the roof of the baseball stadium in tampa. even the emergency response workers who were using this as a base had to shelter from the winds over 100 miles per hour. efforts to repair and rebuild after the hurricane will take months, well beyond the political squabbling that could last until the election 26 days from now. sarah smith, bbc news, florida. >> that is the perspective on the st coast. i can certainly say on the east coast, similar, people expecting it to take several months for the cleanup to be completed, their houses to be rebuilt. we have seen town officials and local police on hand. as we said, it's been a total community effort here, certainly one that will take time, and people are patient. we spoke to someone who said i

am alive, i am well, so anything that happened to my house, we can deal with that as long as everyone is safe. christian: sympathy to those returning to scenes like that. thank you. let's speak to a meteorologist for the my radar app. he is in florida now. you are not really a storm chaser, you are a meteorologist of sorts. we have been following your tiktok through the last 24 hours. >> i am one of the swiss army knives. i do the forecast in the studio and then i am outside chasing. i've been through 11 hurricanes and tornadoes. this was some of the strongest wind i experienced. we got gusts around 150 miles per our, 170 kilometers per hour. the interesting part, the strongest wind came during the back part of the storm. as dry air came back through, it evaporated the rain, causing the air to dry, becoming heavier and

denser, dragging strong momentum with it. in addition to the wind, we got prolific rainfall. tampa saw a once in a thousand-year rain event there. there was a killer tornado that killed four people and let the debris about 10 kilometers high in the sky. the storm surge, too. every facet othe storm was bad and severe and definitely left an impact. christian: we were discussing on the program last night the lack of flood insurance for these people in flood zones around the gold coast. do you think the cost of this to homeowners will be substantial? >> i tnk so. one thing we have seen in recent years as fewer insurers are taking on new clients in the state of florida, same in california due to the wild and earthquake risk. we are getting to the point where it is not sensible to rebuild things the same way in these communities. if your house is only one meter above sea level, you shouldn't be building there. if your house is on stilts, a

sign that he should be building there. my heart goes out to those that suffered fresh water flooding from the heavy rains associated with the storm. the bigger question should be in the future how can we build communities more resilient such that we won't have to rebuild time and again along the west coast of florida? christian: from a forecaster's perspective, we were up and down with hurricane, it grew exponentially within 24 hours. how good are we at predicting what is coming at us? >> interestingly, the storm was very easy to predict. the national hurricane center's first forecast wound up only being 12 miles off from weather center made landfall. truth be told, we are really good forecasters at the strength of it, too. it rapidly intensified over the open ocean. it week into a category 2, 3 when it made landfall. we also knew that would be occurring. i know people always say the weather is never right.

i do tend to be harsh and how we critique ourselves because i checked the forecast if they are good or bad. this is one of the best hurricane forecasts i have seen from the national hurricane center. as a field, we did a really good job. of course, any amount of debt is unacceptable, but the fact that only four died on the tornado, none from the hurricane, show that we did a good job. christian: the videos were good, kept us informed throughout the night. thank you for coming on the program. let's focus a little bit on the climate change element of this. we can speak to kim cobb, climate scientist at brown university. i was looking at the most costly hurricanes on record. five of them are since 2017. they are becoming more regular, they are getting bigger, and i guess you would point to the climate changeo explain that. >> that's correct. thanks for having me first of all. second of all, my heart goes out

to all those people who are still suffering from the remnants of milton and their communities, of course, he'll lean previously. it is just gutting. there is no denying the role for climate change in fueling these classes of monster storms we have seen so frequently in recent years. warmer ocean temperatures, warmer atmospheres, supercharging these storms into the devastating blows that we are seeing on the ground year in, year out. this season predicted to be one of the more active in years past. christian: you might have just heard mathew talking about the back end of the hurricane which he says he will be studying for a long time. there are unexpected elements to this. is that when you will be looking at? >> i think it's important to remember that no two storms are exactly alike. of course ,helene brought its own series of challenges that communities will be studying for yost to come, as well milton now with these very strong outbreaks

of tornadoes which do occur on the heels of the severe storms, thunderstorms, hurricanes like this, but it seems to be have been an exceptional occurrence. you can bet we will be studying that. i also want to echo the point that was made, this was one of the best hurricane forecasts the community has ever put together. helene was also a spot on in terms of intensity and landfall. that is priceless in terms of protecting lives and prepare an infrastructure for the kind of large-scale mobilizations we have seen that have scaled lives. unfortunately, we have communities that were caught flat-footed. those were areas where we need to understand more about resilience planning, what it means when you have the scale of distracting dust destruction far beyond the and in the case of helene far beyond those landfall communities which are such the focus of our attention.

as we go forward come to expect bigger storms, very high cost of human lives with hundreds of people lost in helene. the toll for that and property damages, $47 billion. president biden talking about tens of billions of dollars package recovery for helene. too early to see what the cost of milton will be when you can bet we are backing up hundreds of billions of dollars a year on average for the climate and weather extremes that are directly linked to fossil fuel emissions d warming ocean temperatures, warming land surfaces, warming atmosphere. christian: it's an important point and i don't want to unnecessarily drag you into politics, especially given the period we are in, but when donald trump that we will build back better, it is republicans trying to tighten the amount of money that is dedicated to federal emergency and. i am not blaming republicans in isolation here because it's a problem over the side as well. how much money do you allocate to the cleanup, to resilience?

it is now becoming one of the priority spends for governments right across the west. >> absolutely. the national oceanic and atmospheric administration has tallied the cost of climate and weather extremes over the last 20 years. what we are seeing now is tolls in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year to our economy. this is a serious economic threat. this is largely due to those recovery costs. why should the people on the ground suffer for our lack of preparedness in the face of climate change? you wouldn't turn your blind eye to one of the national hurricane center's excellent forecast for a landfall think hurricane. we should not be turning a blind eye to the robust productions that climate change has four warming services.

surface temperatures going forward linked to worsening tropical storms are going to get worse before it gets better. that is an area where we can lean into the science and save lives, keep communities safe, protect our economy and increase public health. this is really a no-brainer. the fact that we have some folks out there who continue to turn their back on the science of climate change is a threat to our economy, our public health, to our national security. christian: if only we could get all sides meaning into the science, that would be a start. thank you for coming on the program. plenty more on the bbc website if you want to look at the pictures coming in from around florida. around the world and across the u.k., you are watching bbc news.

christian: there has been a vera's response tonight to report that is really troops have fired on u.n. peacekeepers in southern lebanon. several european countries have launched protests with israel.

italy has asked for an official explanation insisting it was not a mistake. two indonesian peacekeepers were injured by a tank round fired at an observation tower, directly hitting it and causing them to fall. their injuries are not serious but they do remain in hospital. the italians who have long contributed to the force said the incident could amot to possible war crimes. the eu's foreign policy commissioner has posted on the social media site x, the idf had crossed another line with no justification. the irish prime minister has told the bbc israel needs to follow international law. >> we have clearly seen today from israel a breach of international law. peacekeepers and peacekeeping are very clearly protected in international law. when you have the united nations using language like deliberately fired on, that is an extraordinary concerning

development. it does sadly seem now like an almost daily basis on that online is constantly being crossed in terms of moving away from international law and international norms when it comes to conflict. christian: let's go to the lebanese capital beirut where my colleague anna foster is tonight. a couple of things for context on this. unifil has been there since 2006. there would be coordinates given to the israelis and in the days leading up to this and they were urging the u.n. troops to move. this allegation from the italians that it was not by accident presumably points to those three facts. >> yes, it does. these are places that had existed for a very long time. unifil's headquarters, where they say an israeli tank fired a shell at an observation post.

those peacekeepers fell to the ground, injured, in hospital, lightly injured and doing ok. but this is not a new building, not a temporary structure. likewise, some of the observation posts over the area in the past few days which unifil says has been targeted by israeli troops, have been used for meetings and talks over several years. they are in constant contact with the israelis. the israelis know these positions they know they are there. that is why there is such concern. as you correctly noted, such a strongly worded statement from unifil, the fact that they use the word "deliberately." we heard from israel's ambassador earlier. he said they were encouraging you and peacekeepers to move away from the fighting areas, but it's also worth noting for your context, christian, this fighting is not between israel and unifil, nor is it between israel and the lebanese armed

forces. both of those are in the area. this is between israel and hezbollah. that is the real concern here. at no point should unifil peacekeepers or the lebanese armed forces be targeted by either side in this. christian: just a quick one because we can see it below you, more deaths in beirut today. >> we heard a huge strike not too long ago very close, probably a kilometer from where i am. another strike on central beirut, which is very rare, only the third we have had outside of the southern suburbs. what i would say is i was in that area earlier today and it is still really busy, not a place that people have moved out from. there was not a warning from that strike, so the death toll now stands at 18 people killed, nearly 100 injured. real concerns because we are outside of that area, reay in the center of the city where

these latest israeli strikes. christian: thank you for coming out tonight. the u.k. government has a its long-awaited plan to overhaul workers rights. the employment rights bill will entitle workers to stronger rights from day one on sick pay and unfair dismissal. it will also offer more security for those on zero hours contracts. and workers will be entitled to paternity, parental, and bereavement leave. unions have broadly welcomed the plans but some business groups have expressed concern particularly for small businesses. most of the changes will not take effect for up to two years. here is our business editor simon jack. >> tomorrow my heading out for a shift at a local care home. she doesn't know how many shifts she will get from week to week as she is on a zero hours contract which makes life and her finances hard to manage. >> i don't know how many hours i will get each month, so i have to be careful with what i'm spending. i just never know how to plan.

i don't know if i'm going to get hours next month or not. >> that is the kind of job insecurity the government wants to address with a raft of new employment rights. at the moment there are one million workers on zero hours contracts. under new plans, there will be a right to a guaranteed hours contract based on average hours worked over a 12 week period, but a right to opt out for those who prefer. currently nine million people cannot bring a claim because they have been employed for two years. new protections offer protection from dismissal from day one but subject to a nine-month probation period during which it will be easier to dismiss employees only if they prove unsuitable for the job. right now, employees are entitled to statutory sick pay. after three days of illness, the plan is to be offered after day one of illness and extended to people on lower earnings who currently don't qualify. currently, employers can deman attendance at a place of work,

but with the proposals, flexible working will be considered the default unless that proves impractical. but, and it is a big but, these and other measures will be consulted on and could take up to two years to come into effect. some businesses are nevertheless nervous about the coming changes. >> about 1003 employees. >> the owner of this cleaning business says they will think twice about adding on more workers. >> when you add up the measures together, it makes businesses fearful of employing people. others i have talked to are concerned about the cost, b, about the implications of getting it wrong. before you may have taken a risk on someone, and now you don't. >> ministers got a mixed reception today. union workers welcomed the package but one group called it clumsy and chaotic. the conservatives said it would have a negative impact on wages and jobs. >> i think we are getting the

balance right and engaging and continuing to consult to make sure we bring these changes in with people so that we can grow the economy and the people can have better terms and conditions in their employment. >> job security makes for happier, more productive workers, say ministers. but businesses who want to look closely at the details in the months to come. christian: we are going to take a short break. the other side of that break, ai announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... woma two retiring executives turn their focus to greyhounds, giving these former race dogs a real chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the way you give back. life well planned. erika: i love seeing interns succeed,