welcome back into live now from fox i'm
your host gabrielle amato live now from
our orlando studios 817 here on the east
coast and i do want to bring you a story
that we will be monitoring all week long
we're learning more this week about the
trucker convoy headed to the d.c region
this week an event organizer says his
convoy plans to shut down the local
beltway our fox 5's melanie altnick is
live with us right now and i do want to
pull her up here on our screens melanie
what is the latest on this story
so what we can tell you is that there's
a number of groups that are organizing
they're doing this on social media and
we do have the large group that is
leaving the west coast
early this week i think today some of
them are taking off and they're making
their way here to the east coast that
takes a long time and a lot of
organizing but then there are other
groups that are up and down the
northeast that are also planning on
making their way here we were able to
reach one of the regional organizers in
pennsylvania and he's the one who told
us that their sites are really on the
capitol beltway here the major
interstate that goes around washington
dc
and their thought is they're going to
drive into dc for a little bit but
they're not going to stay or stop and
then they're going to come up onto the
capitol beltway and it will either be
some kind of a rolling protest or even a
complete stoppage is what they've said
and that can cause major problems here
in the dc area for people trying to get
to and from work now they say that
they're really kind of taking a cue from
their counterparts in canada they have a
lot of grievances here it's not just
about
the vaccine mandates and testing
mandates this group at least the folks
that we talked to tell us they're upset
about fuel prices they're upset about
trucking regulations illegal immigration
all of those things they say that they
blame the biden administration for and
they want to come here before the
midterms and send a message now this
group from pennsylvania tells us they're
planning on leaving wednesday this
wednesday to make their show and their
stand here in the dc area and then
they say they will leave by the time the
other groups the people's convoy come
here to the d.c area how many it's hard
to say gabby from what this organizer
tells us he says about 900 to a thousand
participants
but it's again these are early estimates
we also talked with local law
enforcement we talked with the maryland
state police virginia state police they
are aware of this plan on the beltway
and uh some of the other regions as well
and they say they're monitoring the
situation we also ask the organizers
what about people that
might you know need to get to hospitals
or or need to get to work we saw what
happened when i-95 was shut down uh what
a mess that caused and they did say that
they would let emergency responders
through but they really aren't that
interested if people are late for work
he said
back to you
yeah thank you for that latest update
and i guess my next question would
naturally be how long do they plan to
stay we've seen uh the freedom convoy in
canada parked
for over three weeks now is that the
kind of time frame that you're hearing
from your sources
i don't know if it's weeks but what i
can tell you is they have lots of
supporters along the route and what
they're doing right now is they're
pecking drop points and people who
aren't necessarily truck drivers
they're actually coming with supplies
and they're filling trailers full of
these supplies for these truckers to
come and load up their trucks so they
have enough extra fuel enough food
enough clothing whatever it is that they
might need to be here for a certain
period of time so we're not really sure
what the plan is or what it would take
for them to feel like they've made their
point but we know that the the state of
the union address is march first and the
plan from what we're seeing now at least
the route mapping and the route planning
is for the large group of the convoy to
get here sometime around march 3rd or
march 4th how long after that they stay
gabby we're just really not sure yet
lucky for us we have you on the ground
to keep us updated on this situation and
we certainly will be keeping everyone
updated because as you outlined and as
we've seen over in canada this is a
situation that can have massive
implications for really everyone
involved so thank you very much for the
report melanie stay safe and stay warm
okay thanks