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tv   FOX and Friends  FOX News  March 26, 2024 3:00am-4:01am PDT

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resources available. as it pertains to the survival, i hesitate to say one way or the other because they are still at this age the security guard considering this a search and rescue effort at some stage they, meaning the authorities, will call it and make a determination if it's no longer a search and rescue effort that it would be a recovery effort. >> todd: and, ted, of course we are monitoring that as well. ted williams, thank you for your time. we are praying four your city today. latest update on the press conference. officials will provide update around 6:15. about 15 minutes from now. fire chief, mayor and the baltimore city executive. "fox & friends" continues our conch. francis scott key bridge collapse all morning long. >> brian: here we go. you are not going to believe that a massive emergency
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response is underway after this bridge in baltimore collapsed earlier this morning. >> steve: did you see that? stunning. the entire span of the francis scott key bridge came crashing down into the river after a container ship rammed a support beam as you can see in the left hand part of the screen. >> lawrence: so firefighters say as many as 20 people are in the water. and it's being described as a mass casualty event, kayleigh. >> we are awaiting a press conference that's expected to begin at 6:15 a.m. we will take you there live when it happens. go to griff jenkins who is live on the scene. griff? >> griff: yeah, good morning, guys. you can't overstate how significant of that collapse this was. , this we're learning the details from overnight around 1:30 a.m. that's when this singapore flagged cargo ship hit one of the major beams and collapsed that entire span. the video just stunning. and we are learning this is
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being treated as a mass casualty event and there are rescue teams in the water. we have got headquarters above. where we are standing is on the north side of where the francis scott key bridge was. i'm just going to show you, this is as close as we can get. sanford, if you will just push down this road here, this is where the emergency vehicles have been racing down this road, but the bridge where it existed was just down there. the mass casualty event, the numbers they gave us were 20 people as we watch more of the maintenance crews n. and folks going down this road trying to get to the north side. but this is one of the major shipping areas, if not the major shipping area. the poo as it co-river. it brings you into baltimore harbor on the major 695 highway here going south to north into
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baltimore those shipping harbor from the chesapeake bay has been effective live halted as have you got this federal and local response happening right now. we are hoping for any update in press conference here within the hour. but this is an event that is absolutely brought this city and this commerce area to a halt as they try and rescue the people. now, we're talking to sources here just where we're standing basically the parking lot of this thoroughfare and bridge. routine on any given night that in the overnight hours, that's when they would do maintenance. not only could it possibly be the cars that might have been on the bridge at that time but also some routine maintenance workers that may have been working on that bridge. and, obviously, the span you see that video is a significant one.
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this bridge is gone. and we could not know ultimately whether the number is larger than 20 of the people that may be in that water. if you were in a car and you just look at the height, 100 plus feet of the facialtion it's plunging into very cold water. even surviving the plunge would be questionable and on top of that, it's cold out here and the folks out here it's in the 30's. that water is in the mid 40's. and so you have got a hypothermia concern right now and, of course, as we look at the helicopters up in the sky, there are four helicopters hovering above. some may be news crews others the emergency response they can't see much because the sun is not yet up. but one thing is clear. and that is no traffic by sea or land is coming through this thoroughfare right now as the crews are working as fast as they can to try rescue people and the number of people in that water unknown. one thing to put into
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perspective is you are weighing up and learning this, this just doesn't happen. large container ships don't hit major parts of bridges and collapse them like this. because it is a routine, everyday, 24 hours a day you have got these shipping containers come in. they know where to go. it's unclear a lot of questions of why this ship would have hit that column to bring the span of that bridge down. we are trying to learn more about that as well. but, right now, it's all eyes on the rescue mission. governor wes moore of maryland putting out a statement just within the hour declaring a state of emergency, saying that he is praying for the people and applauding the first responders that are on site right behind me. some 500 to 1,000 yards down behind me here trying to save lives and, also, to try and bring into perspective exactly what has happened. guys? >> steve: that's right. >> lawrence: go ahead, steve.
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>> steve: griff, you set the scene perfectly. there's that livestream video of the port so we get to see how many cars are on the bridge before the ship inexplicably drives into the support column. and there are, i read at least seven cars. there was at least one tractor-trailer also at the same time and you mentioned this routine maintenance going on. actually, there were 20 guys there apparently pouring concrete, according to the daily mail. and, to your point, the fall is 180 feet from the top of the roadway at the apex of the bridge into the water. and as a surfer you know that cold water is important. i just looked, the national data buoy center shows the water temperature as of an hour ago 4r temperature at 41. and you are right. now they got to worry about
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hypothermia if anybody is still alive in that water. greff. >> griff: you know, steve, one thing that's worth pointing out. you know being from this area and you know, this is -- people think wow, 1:30 in the morning there must not have been many people there, but there were a lot of people. construction workers. but also this is a major shrink area moving all of our products, you know, from south of washington up the northeast corridor. this is the main northeast corridor. so not only do you have the shipping containers coming worldwide, delivering many of the products you buy at the store, grocery store and other things coming here. you have the amazon distribution center as well as several other parts of the baltimore harbor here. you have shut down effectively one of the major commerce points in the northeast. and there would have been a lot of people moving after the any given hour of the day along that bridge that is why people are
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starting to realize how significant of an event this has become. but, going back to what you were talking about and the conditions, it's very, very difficult to survive in these hypothermia conditions to be in that water. fortunately, the weather is as janice dean was pointing out and first pretty calm here, it's not windy. there is no storms right now. but it is a major river. poo at that point so he can river. dive teams will be limited with the amount of exposure they can take from the elements trying to find people along with the difficulty of navigating this thorough favor and the damage to the bridge. it wasn't just a piece of the bridge. an entire massive span of that bridge collapsed here. that's going to make navigating
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the river area through this passage very difficult. that's why they have effectively halted all shrink traffic as well as, obviously, all highway traffic through this area. >> brian: griff, before we let you go, just from -- i know they keep you kind of far back. we are about to talk about the search and rescue. have you been able to see anything? have you been able to see the divers go into the water? have you been able to see any trucks. have you seen any vehicles? >> griff: i will give you one more look, brian. >> this is as close as we can get. you can see crews and emergency personnel going down this bridge. if we were to that i can this camera and keep walking southbound where that car just went down that road and went down there, you would get to where it collapsed. we have not seen -- i can't see the ship. i can't get close enough to the water. this is as far as it would let us go. we talked our way into here. we are learning that some media
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is actually being held back from where we are. so we are as close as we can possibly get. but, when you go down this road, you would see, essentially where that span of bridge has collapsed closer to the north side than the south side and we are on the north side of this right here where we are standing. >> lawrence: thanks so much. >> steve: go gather more information. great reporting so far this morning. >> lawrence: statement from the shipping company closely following investigation followed by the authorities synergy we will do our utmost to keep our customers informed. bring in former navy seal trainer, navy diner jake we have wig into the program. jake, thanks so much for joining the program when i'm looking at the scene and you know this from your experience with search and rescue as well as other operations whether it comes to the navy, you are looking at the
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point of sight and part of the problem they are going to have to deal with is normally those rescue operators would have had to use the bridge. then if they don't have the bridge they are depending on the boats. well, getting that amount of boats ready to rescue 20-plus people, what are we talking about when it comes to this type of operation? >> so, first, let me say my heart goes out to all of the families that have experienced a loss tonight. the problem that we're dealing with here is we are dealing with water. and the average human being can hold their breath in an emergency situation for about a minute 30. so if they weren't able to rescue themselves from the car or they are able to cling on to something like the workers laying the cement we are pretty much in a rescue and recovery situation at this point. >> brian: see the bridge collapse at that speed. what are you think going you are
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that bridge in that car you don't have much time to do anything. put the window down, get out a hammer. there is no warning. >> there is no wancht the number one thing you have got to do is roll your window down there. is a ton of videos online about trying to get out of a car submerged in 4 or 5 feet of water. they also had to deal with the fall of the bridge and it looks to me that it wasn't just a complete free fall from 180 feet. so there could be some people that survived the initial fall. >> the question is just could they get out of the car. >> carley: jake, i want to remind our viewers we are awaiting a press conference in the next few minutes. we hope to get some answers. to me the analogy that comes to mind is a similar situation that happened in 1980 in tampa, st. petersburg you had a ship that hit the skyway bridge, seven vehicles in the water. 35 people passed away. certainly no visibility at that time. i would imagine over 40 years of radar technology has improved.
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you would have to have some sort of mechanical failure. i read that there was about 10-mile visibility here. take us into what modern day shipping would be like in a situation like this and how the weather would play into this vis-a-vis mechanical error? >> being a former ship driver in the navy, this is just incredible to me. the channel is only 150 yards, so it's really tight through there. but at the end of the day, there was two pilots on board. my guess is something -- they had to have a mechanical failure back in steering, something happens that two incredibly verse wanted pilots in baltimore harbor allowed a huge container ship to run into one of the pier supports. there are three lights that line the channel right there by the bridge. those pilots do this all day every day: obviously this is ntv national investigation on
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they will get drug tested. something had to be massively awry for them to run into the bridge. >> steve: to that point, jake, i'm seeing on the "new york times" website they have got a passage that they just posted that says and essentially is the same video we have been looking at, livestream video of the port shows most of the ship's lights went dark just two minutes before the ship hit the bridge. and i just got a text from a guy who lives in that neck of the woods. and he said this is unconfirmed. he says a chesapeake bay pilot piloting another ship on that river told me that the cargo boat that hit the key bridge lost its engines and struck the bring into has not been confirmed that goes to your point about a massive mechanical fire. there is no steering no, hydraulics, you are just
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screwed. >> a ship like this takes miles to stop. even if it did have an engine. even if it was going at a slow rate of speed. it's a huge, mass moving through the water you can't just stop it. it's not -- it's not like a speed boat or ski boat where you throw it in reverse and can you stop. it takes a long time. if they lost mechanical power then it makes all the sense in the world. that puts my heart at ease because initially i was looking at maybe a possible terrorist attack. >> brian: it's 30 minutes into a 27-day journey when this took place. do we even know if the ship is above water? >> there is some pictures of it sitting kind of hung up in the bring. it's floating still. >> lawrence: jake, i'm curious, you are the expert in. this when you look at the bridge collapse as we have been playing all morning for our audience to see. it looks like it falls pretty fast. it didn't look -- what type of
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force are we talking about? is that normal for a bridge to fall that quickly or is it because that boat carries a lot of weight? combination of two things. engineering of a bridge is predicated on support. the span of the channel was roughly. i just did some rough math about 400 yards. so, if you take any one of those supports away, the bridge is not going to stand up on on its own. it's just not. engineering wise, the bridge is engineered to support cars going over it. it's not engineered for lateral force on the pillars. you had a huge ship, and i mean it just took out a pillar. there is no way the bridge survives. the ship weighs so much that it, you know, i was surprised that it didn't go all the way through the bridge. >> kayleigh: jake, there were reports that there were
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containers potentially hanging from the bridge. if you can take someone in the mind diving. not get in the water and looking. you are dealing with darkness and matter hanging off the bridge that could fall at any given moment. >> there's a bunch of factors involved in the rescue operations from a diving perspective, they have to make sure that the diving area is secure. the other factor in that is that you have a ship. so ships have huge ports where water enters and they're a number one casualty causener diving around ships. i think they are going to have to do -- it doesn't really matter if it's day or night. they have got flashlights. they have to secure the area before they can get in the water and really search for victims of this tragedy that we're seeing here in baltimore. >> brian: they say that built in 2015. south korea, hyundai heavy industries. the following year it was involved in a minor accident when it hit a stonewall. and we'll see where that goes.
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they pulled into port in the u.s. in new york on march 19th. and they were 30 minutes into their 45-day journey. so, 27-day journey. so there's a lot of questions. but you wonder if it just leaves port, don't they go through the same protocols as planes do on safety? >> so, a lot of times the ship never turns off. like, when it comes into port, it's getting containers off loaded and onloaded. the ship is running that whole time. so, you know, if they had a mechanical failure or completed loss of power on the ship, if it happened before, you know, we'll have records of it, it will be interesting to see how their maintenance records were and if there was some other things that led up to this. was it poor maintenance on the ship's part? that happens a lot. >> lawrence: tell me about the fall itself though. if you are in your car, and the bridge is struck, and you fall into the water, are you
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unconscious immediately once you hit the water in most cases or is there some survival opportunity there? >> so falling is falling. if you fall off a bridge into the water or if you fall off a building, you know, the top of the span is 180 feet it. doesn't look like they are free falling from the top of the bridge. however, my guess is they are probably going to be unconscious. and you know, it's just a question of whether they can -- whether they were able to regain consciousness and then have their faculties about them to exit the vehicle, swim to the surface and survive. >> steve: to your point, jake, when you were describing that, i was thinking okay, if you were one of the 20 guys on that bridge surface who were pouring concrete, and you hit the water, say you rode down the bridge surface but then you got the rest of the bridge on top of
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you, part of that truss, it's just a hell on earth. but, let me ask you this though going back to ship driving days, if there was a catastrophic power failure on this ship as some have suggested. wouldn't the crew call the harbor and say hey, we're going 10 knots and i can't steer this thing? shouldn't they know 1:30 in the morning to stop traffic on the bridge. you could call 911. but it's still going to take them three or four minutes to get to the bridge if they are on 695. so, calling somebody my thing is about the only recourse they had was to drop the anchors, but even in baltimore harbor, dropping the anchors isn't going to slow the ship down that much. >> kayleigh: jake, we are still waiting for the press conference that could begin at any moment.
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one eyewitness heard an earthquake and the sound of thunder. another woman in the area said it sounded like an explosion. can you visibly see if you are looking at that i am image when it collapsed a plume of smoke. what do you think that is? it's undoubtedly the ship colliding with the bridge but what specifically? >> that's just the result of two large masses coming together. so, the mass of the ship and the mass of the bridge support coming together. it's much like -- i hate to say this it's much like 9/11 when the buildings fell down they felt it miles away. >> brian: it collapses in. at this point, do you expect anybody was up above on the ship in the middle of the night just coming in 30 minutes into their journey because if they were up above, it doesn't look good with the bridge collapsing. are most sailors, are they below? >> so my guess is there was a crew, the guys manning the
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anchors in the very front of the ship. and i don't know the exact nature of this ship, but my guess is they were either a deck below or they were in that general area. and probably a minute before this happened, they got a call to run. and so they probably were able to evacuate the area. if they were left up in the front posthole, there is a chance you have crew members of the ship trapped in the front of the ship. >> steve: jake, i have never been on a container ship like this. it's gigantic. it's 1,000 feet lock. i have been on some cruise ships. when you go into a port, you wind up getting a pilot, a harbor pilot to help essentially navigate the ship. in the middle of the night at 1:30 in the night container ship out in the port of baltimore. do they have pilot boats? do they have pilots that go on board or this is routine for them they do it all the time? >> so my understanding is there
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was two pilots on this ship when this accident happened. the pilot loading area is right on the other side of the bridge. so that's where the pilots disembark and embark on the ship. >> steve: so those are guys from baltimore piloting? >> yeah. they are the professional guys that have all of the subject matter experts on baltimore port. all they work is baltimore port there's auto team of them. and under normal business protocol, they ride every ship in and out. baltimore is a really small port, and it's notoriously bad for its wind. so you have got to have subject matter experts that know every light, every hole is, every little nuances of the port like this could be a terrorist
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attack. if now thinking ship lost power it makes all the sense in the world it. doesn't matter. all the information on the harbor isn't going to help you if you can't control the ship. >> lawrence: jake, i'm curious, just based on your experience, you said that unfortunately this may be a search and recovery operation. and those of you just now joining, in we are covering the baltimore bridge collapse right now expecting a press conference momentarily. but, if this is now a search and recovery operation, what do you tell your guys as they prepare for the worse going on to a scene like this? >> so, believe it or not, most of these guys have done this before. in the baltimore area cars find theirselves in the water. have you drownings. you have stuff like that. so, unfortunately, these guys are veterans. there is an unsaid toll emotionally on going to recover
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bodies. i have a good friend that had to go dive on an airplane crash over in bahrain when an airplane crashed and 130 people passed away. he said it was terrible. so our hearts go out to these guys that are in the water trying to rescue these people. hopefully they can get them early, in a couple days their bodies will transform a lot and it will be a different situation. >> kayleigh: our hearts goes out to up to 20 people who might be there and of course those search and rescue trying to find them. when you look historically at bridge collapses. you go back to 2013 in mt. vernon, washington, what you find is an oversized truck crash into the bridge. 2007, mississippi river bridge collapse. it was a design flaw. 2005, it was hurricane katrina in new orleans and then really you go back to tampa, florida as i mentioned in 1980 where you had a similar large vessel hit the bridge.
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the reason i bring this up historical context, you know, there must be multiple fail safes. when steve talks about mechanical failure, there had to be multiple fail safes that failed because this is such a rarity. 40 years is the last one i could find. >> the thing that comes to my mind, to be honest with you is, we could have a little bit of preventative measure -- preventative metrics involved here if we just had a tug attached to the ship. i watched a couple videos. it appears that the tugs are cut off at the loading facilities. and it is just so much risk involved. this is the number one port in the united states. it handles over 700,000 vehicles being imported on row row ships. like a simple tug boat probably could have prevented this from happening because it would have been able to steer the ship back into the than on a full casualty
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event that we just had. so i just think it comes to cost don't want to escort the boat all the way out. there is going to have to be some changes. >> brian: having never done this before, why would a tug boat be preferable to steering your own boat. >> a lot of times when you get in close to the piers, the tug boats help you maneuver. a lot of the cargo ships have bough thrusters that allow them to do a lot of the maneuvering. it's a fail safe you have another boat able to move the bigger boat because it's a tug boat. a lot of times when you pull into port you will have between 1 and 4 tug boats attached to your ship to work as extra engine does give you more that t niewrvelt. >> we'll be hearing from baltimore officials any minute now they were supposed to start talking about 10 minutes ago and at the top of the hour we will hear from the maryland
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department of transportation because this is i 659. 30,000 cars go across it every day and i'm sure they will talk about traffic and what we know what happened. we have jake zig with us. former navy seal and navy diver. as we look at this video making up this morning and looking at this video it is horrifying. i go across the george washington bridge twice a day. big bridge like this how easy that thing collapsed it fell down like a toy. i think it's stunning to a lot of people that this could happen and they -- this ultimately was pretty fragile. i mean, we talked about this a little bit earlier. >> steve: jake, apologies. there is that press conference. >> around the region including
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baltimore city. anne randles county. baltimore county as well as multiple local and state police natural resources police bpd special ops unit. maryland state police is in here. we have multiple resources. we are still very much in an active search and rescue posture at this point. and we will continue to be for some time. we have a large area that we have to search. this includes on the surface of the water, subsurface, as well as on the deck of the ship itself. we believe at this point we may be looking for -- we may be looking for upwards of seven individuals. that's the latest information we have. , however, what i will say is the information that i'm giving you right now is as of right now. it's what we know right now.
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>> this is a very large incident. it involves a very large footprint. multiple agencies are operating; therefore, information is subject to change as we get more intel and as our crews work through the morning. over the next 8 to 12 hours. can you expect to continue to see our air and maritime assets functioning out on the water and in the air above. we need to do damage assessment of the ship itself before we can board that ship. and we need to continue our subsurface search, which is including different types of sonar. we have side scan sonar. we have owe sonar capabilities here. we have underwater uavs that we are working with and throughout the night we have also been working with infrared technology both from the air and on the water surface. so, i'm going to wrap up here with just saying this continues to be a search and rescue
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operation. it continues to be a very dynamic operation with multiple local state and federal resources involved. with that, i'm going to turn it over to our mayor, mayor brandon scott. >> thank you. thank you, chief. everyone, this is an unthinkable tragedy. we have to first and foremost pray for all of those who are impacted, those families, pray for our first responders and thank them, all of them working together, cities, state, local, to make sure that we are working through this tragedy. this is an ongoing active research that we are having right now. we are going to continue as you heard from the chief throughout as long as we have to be doing that we will do it. but we have to be thinking about the families and people impacted. folks who we have to try to find and save. this is what our focus should be on right now. we're going to continue to work
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in partnership with every part of government to do everything that we can to get us through the other side of this tragedy. and, with that i will turn it over to county executive olszewski. >> >> thank you, mayor scott. i think we all awoke this morning to an unspeakable tragedy, as the mayor indicated. we know that there will be families and individuals impacted by this regardless of what's the rest of the way out. so i would just echo the mayor lifting our prayers for those impacted but also ask that our residents pray for our first responders. you know, they have been on scene since very early in the morning. not only conducting initial search and rescue operations, planning for additional ones as the sun comes up. and you know, the work that they do cannot be understated. i want to just thank them for all that they are doing and will do in the hours and days ahead. we know that we have a long road ahead, not just in the search and rescue but in the fallout
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following this. i think we appropriately have our attention on the search and rescue efforts currently and just here alongside our partners in the city to say that they have our full support just as we want to thank our state partners for the resources they have offered up as well as the federal partners who have already reached out. the mayor and i have talked to the governor. we have heard from the secretary of transportation. so collectively we thank everyone for their thoughts and their well-wishes. but, again, this is a very active situation and we want to just thank the chief and our teams for all the great work they are doing. with that i will turn things back over to the chief. >> thank you, we will do some q&a right now. we will go around and everyone with questions [inaudible] >> chief, can you tell us where the crew of the ship is? you also mentioned, too that two people were rescued. who made the first 911 call? there were reports that there
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was a crew on the deck of the ship working at that point. can you confirm any of that information. >> the latest information we von the crew of the ship is that they're still on board the ship. there has been comms between the ship crew and the coast guard so as part of the overall operation, we communicate through the coast guard with the ship. i'm sorry your other questions? >> there were two people taken. who made the first 911 call? >> i don't know who made that call yet. >> and were there other workers on the deck of the ship -- or deck of the bridge at this point? we have heard that information. can you confirm that. >> we are being told there were workers on the bridge. we have yet to confirm that. we'll work with mta to, you know, obviously get that information. >> about how many cars were on that ship -- last question, on the deck of the bridge at the time of collapse. >> don't have a number. i can a tell you hour sonar has detected the presence of vehicles submerged in the water. i don't have a count of that yet. >> you mentioned upwards of
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seven individuals that you are looking for. we heard reports as many as 20 individuals. can you just paint a more clear picture about how many people actually fell into the water. how many you might be looking to rescue and been given an idea how many vehicles you might not have that answer. >> i will start with the last one. so, i don't know how many vehicles yet. i know that we have detected the presence of vehicles. as far as the number between the 7 and 20, that's been a dynamic count throughout the morning just given the fact that we haven't yet nailed that number down. we do believe that at least seven are involved in that. at least seven at this point. >> that fell into the water? >> yes, ma'am. >> yeah. and i know you said the crew was accounted for for coast guard on deck. do we know if any of the crew members of these seven people that may have been in the water. >> we do not. >> survivability water
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temperatures not very long. shift focus [inaudible] >> so, we will be guided by our dive teams. we will determine what the temperature of the water is. the other issue that we have out there is this water is current influenced. so, right now we think the tide is coming back. in that adds a bit of auto challenge it to us, also. we can certainly dive in these conditions but we have to take a lot of factors into play. the fact that there may be trauma involved. they have been in water an extended period of time. but also remember we are battling darkness. so, you know, it's quite possibly that we may have somebody there that we have not seen yet. and as they work closer to the debris field, you know, they will obviously make those determinations. we are going to rely on the experts which are our dive masters that are here. our dive team to tell us when they believe we have reached that non-survivability.
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>> chief wallace, was there any indication that there was a problem on the ship? was it led in by tug boats, mayday? anything that can so far early on point to you something went wrong? >> we do not have that information with regard to the investigation. i would refer that to law enforcement. my focus since 1:40 this morning has been that rescue operation. >> so far there has been no indication that any kind of emergency dispatch came from that ship before hand? >> i have no information about that, ma'am. >> have you been able to talk to the pilot, the american pilot on that bridge? >> the pilot on the vessel? >> yeah. >> we have not talked to the pilot on the vessel. the rescue personnel the rescue operation we have not interacted. >> what can you tell us about these victims pulled from the water? men, woman? >> update on the condition again? >> i don't have age and gender
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on either. one patient refused service. right? really they weren't injured. the second patient, however, was seriously injured. and is at an area trauma center. >> are you including them in the seven, at least seven people? >> we don't know yet if they are part of that seven. the patient is injured severely enough that we have not been able to debrief that patient. >> that seven number, did that come from people witnessing cars going down? where did that number come from or just from the sonar hits you got? >> no. that was the initial information that we got as we were arriving on the scene that number. that number, again, as i said earlier, has fluctuated. that seven has been a consistent number. >> how many agencies are here assisting right now? >> oh, wow. >> with the recovery? >> dozens. i mean, locally, fire department wise baltimore county here howard county, hartford was here.
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p.g. was here. an rondell. first baltimore city. >> we are bringing in the equipment specific to the operation right now. even law enforcement agencies have a lot of the same marine ops equipment we do. given the incident is so big, we try to force multiply and bring as many resources as we can so we can really blanket a large area for the search. >> what kind of resources are you bringing in to negate that. >> we have not been able to confirm that we actually have a actual fuel spill from the vessel. we have had odors of diesel fuel. the maryland department of the environment is here as well as the coast guard they would take leads on that as well. we hope that the sun comes up with the air assets that are up to get a much bigger picture if
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we do have a fuel spill what the effect has been so far as daylight comes up how is that going to impact of that with resources. >> maryland state police has been here. foxtrot is also working this. they are our two air resources right now. i don't know that we won't bring any more in but right now they are the two primary. you know, air reconnaissance on something on the open water is an invaluable resource. and we have been very fortunate to have it because as we people people out on the dark to conduct severance they have degree of overwatch from those assets it's been invaluable resource. >> we're talking about search and rescue i know that and that's where the focus is right now. i was awakened to this news. we were all awakened to this news. i have seen the video. what do you make of the totality of this incident? what are you thinking about and what are you seen and what in community has experienced? >> this is a tragedy as you can never imagine, right? and i was awake when chief
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wallace called me. never what you think that you would see, physically see the key bridge tumble down like that. it looked like something out of an action movie. you just think about what we all should be thinking about right now nothing but those families and people that are impacted and those people who are risking their lives right now not just baltimore city and baltimore county but all over this state to try to save lives that should be our focus the preservation of life. no one wants to see that happen. someone in their family, someone that they know be injured in an incident like this. >> a few more questions. >> your thoughts what this community has experienced? >> look, i think that folks are stunned. folks are reeling. and i think that's particularly true for people who are worried about their loved ones right now. i think there will be plenty of
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time to talk about what this bridge means to the community, what it means for commerce but at the end of the day, right now this is about humanity of people who are impacted and men and women out there trying to save lives and recover folks off the river. i think there will be plenty of opportunity to talk about that but really right now and for the foreseeable hours ahead, this is really about focusing on the search and rescue efforts i want to again thank the chief for his leadership and all of the affiliate partners we have working on this. >> chief, i know. >> the fact that this could have been intentional this could have been some act of terrorism intentionally hitting the bridge? >> that's not my focus here, ma'am. that's part of the law enforcement investigation. i would defer to the proper authorities for that. >> saw something similar to this happen in philly when i-95. >> a portion of that came down. i know you said that you guys have spoken to the secretary of transportation pete buttigieg. has he made any comment about
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the assistance being rushed through? get this taken care of. >> thank you. i spoke with secretary pete buttigieg directly. he and his team said that they obviously work with us throughout this incident. work with not just the city and county but really the state of maryland to make sure that we have every resource that he and the federal government can provide. >> how long is it going to take to rebuild, this mayor? >> i think right now, sir, listen, we shouldn't be having that discussion right now. the discussion right now should be about the people, the souls, the lives that we're trying to save. there will be a time to discuss about a bridge and how we get a bridge back up. but right now there are people in the water that we have to get out. and that's the only thing we should be talking about. >> to go back to the question about the terrorism. there is absolutely no indication that there is any terrorism, that this was done on purpose?
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criminal working with the fbi and other federal and state agencies to get all the intel that we have but there is absolutely no indication that it was intentional. >> thank you, everybody. >> i want to thank you all. i will be advising you, updating you on the next briefing. >> steve: we been listening to baltimore city officials talk about what used to stand right there. you are looking at the approaches to the francis scott key bridge on i-695. if you are just waking up overnight at 1:30 in the morning a giant cargo ship ran into one of the support columns and it collapsed. and we just heard some details from the press conference. we heard that there were seven to 20 people on the bridge at the time that have been able to locate 2. one person in the hospital right now. the other person declined care. >> kayleigh: that one sent to a local trauma condition was described in serious condition. they said they are in an active
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search and rescue posture and will continue to be for some time. they're looking on the surface, subsurface, even on the deck of the ship, questions whether the crew was on board. it appears that they're, at least at the moment. they said this will go on for about 8 to 12 hours. this maritime asset functioning. and they will rely on divers to tell them when they have reached the non-survivability point. the good news is they don't feel they are there yet. >> lawrence: we heard they are using under water uavs essentially drones under the water that they are using to actually see what is happening on the scene. big news from the police chief there. he said he is working with fbi. there's no indication that this was an act of terrorism or that the crash was inner tensional. we still expect another press conference at 7:00 a.m. from the maryland department of transportation. >> brian: i don't know what they could possibly tell us we just learned in 20 minutes. hopefully more good news about people being pulled out. the temperatures between 47 and 49 degrees right now. they say the water is effected
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by the current and the tithe is come in. that will be additional challenges. whether the sun comes up obviously help. wait a little bit for that workers thought to be on the bridge. you talk about timing imagine working on the bridge. dangerous enough. a ship hits a support column and down goes the -- down goes the bridge. so, as was brought up by the mayor, you don't even want to think about how long it's going to take the bridge as long as there are people in the water and others missing. one they said a tractor-trailer one that went under. >> and when we were talking to the expert about 15 minutes ago, the navy seal, he said the first thing you got to do is roll that window down if you know you are going into the water. who is thinking like that. you don't even know what hit you. what is doctoring is he pointed out that the bridge didn't go flat to the ground. it hit almost like a step and then empties. so maybe that could cushion the blow and maybe give people some hope that they did survive.
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>> lawrence: to that point brian, and steve, you were going into the two survivors. we learned from the fire department chief that one refused care and walked away from the scene. >> steve: right. >> lawrence: what was not said is what part of the crash did these two individuals were from. we don't know if they were in the car or hanging on the bridge. you know, we don't know if they were a part of the ship as well. we don't know what location they were at. >> steve: the state of maryland is going to have another press conference coming up in 13 minutes as we look at the video. if you are just looking up. we heard the mayor of baltimore say it's like video from an action movie. there is the bridge, screen left, can you see the thousand foot container ship hit one of the support columns and down it goes. right now. let's dial in somebody who has used this bridge a million times. collide boat right is the president of the maryland state fraternal order of police and he joins us right now.
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clyde good morning to you. >> good morning, good morning. thank you for having me. it has always been there. to see it go down like that, what do you think i have many fond memories from high school, class trips, senior year, you know, we did our senior farewell on the lady baltimore that went tout key bridge. i took my first crews out of the port ever baltimore was on a cruise ship that had to go under the key bridge. it's very, very disheartening to see this catastrophic incident. >> lawrence: clyde, i'm curious, and thank you so much for your service and praying for the men and women in blue as well as the fire rescue today. >> what do you do when you council to a scene like this? hearing this is pretty much a rescue operation. what are they doing as they prepare to go to the scene right now. >> again, first of all, i really
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want to say my trailers are thod prayers going out to those who are impacted. i know the men and women police and fire doing all that they can to try to make this a rescue operation have to remain safe themselves. i have heard discussions about the water temperature and things like that. that is very concerning and, you know, we have our first responders there accessing the scene via land, via air. via sea different vessels trying to get to this crash site and trying to locate anyone that could possibly be just floating around in the water waiting to be rescued. >> kayleigh: clyde, we this morning thought it could be up to 20. and now we have this number seven individuals but it was described by local authorities that 7 to 20 and dynamic count and it has been hard to nail down the exact number. can you imagine why. i want to bring us back to something our experts said at the top of the show.
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he talked about the efficacy of having a tug boat on the ship. he looked as closely as he could at the video didn't seep one. again, we are just gathering facts. we don't know whether there was a tug boat there you have thoughts on how a tug boat could assist in a situation like. this yeah. so i have seen over the years watching ships come in and out of that channel, when they come out of the port of baltimore, usually a tug boat is positioned on one or both of the sides of the vessel to try to get it through and under the key bring. i recall being on a cruise ship and watching the cruise ship take on water to lower itself just to get under that span of the bridge. typically, you know, vessels head for the middle of the cruise ship. i was very, very disheartened to see initially when watching the video that this particular boat
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was almost dead on with the support structure, the support column for this bridge. it was very, very concerning knowing that boats typically head for the middle of the key bridge and then they drop down to get under that span. >> brian: you know what's interesting it's only 30 minutes in to its journey. and it's 30 minutes in and it's just pulling out, so, you wonder you can't think there is fatigue playing a role 30 minutes into a voyage like this. you wonder pilots, before they ever get behind in a vessel like that, have to train for years. so you wonder it can't be necessarily inexperience. so, it makes you wonder how plausible mechanical failure is and are there fail-safes within that system should this happen? >> so i thought it was very interesting, the navy seal, he was very detailed in his explanation of out these things
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work. and, you know, and i also looked at the comments from commercial westerly who just spoke and no evidence of a criminal act. there are a number of catastrophic things that we see hang in the video such as there is dark black smoke. it appears that multiple times throughout the video that the ship lost power and regained power. and so that could play a role into what happened. and listening to the navy seal. i'm actually, you know, thinking like hey, this could have been a situation where the ship lost power and was just a vessel that was a run away vessel at that point. >> steve: to that point, clyde, there's a report out there in the "new york times" that the livestream video of the port shows that that particular ship apparently most of the lights went out two minutes before the ship hit the bridge. and as our expert jake told us about a half an hour ago, the
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navy seal e said that he looked into it, and there were two pilots actually driving the boat. the ship at that time. and they were both -- they worked for the p port of baltimore. they drive in and out they know exactly where that column is. that suggests mechanical or hydraulic problem. it would be one thing if one guy fell asleep but two guys can't fall asleep. >> typically you are not going to fall asleep 20 minutes into a voyage like that. these guys to be local. know these waterways. this bridge was open march of 1977. so, 47 years ago this bridge was open hundreds of ships have passed under this bridge on a yearly basis. so, you don't anticipate that
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will be driver error would have contributed. but that is stuff for the ntsb and for the maryland state police and the transportation authority police, baltimore police department, intel, all of those different agencies, they will get to the bottom of what actually happened with this incident. but, it's really, really, really, really sad to know that people were working. people were crossing the bridge. and they could have been impacted by this sudden tragic incident. >> lawrence: clyde, real quickly. who is responsible for law enforcement in that marine area right there? is it the baltimore marine unit right there. >> it's really complex. so, the bridge itself is handled by the maryland transportation authority police for the bridge itself. the waterways, of course, is handled by the united states coast guard. but on the baltimore side, on one side of the bridge is
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baltimore city, line and on the other side of the bridge is baltimore county. you don't know who has jurisdiction over it. and i'm thinking more than likely that the coast guard will have overall governing authority because it's in open waterway. >> kayleigh: thank you, clyde. we really appreciate your expertise. >> thank you for having me. >> steve: you bet. let's -- you know, and we have been talking about the conditions there right now. let's bring in janice dean, our senior meteorologist with the conditions that the divers are facing. janice, as of 4:00 this morning, according to the national data buoy center, the water temperature there 49 degrees. air temperature 41. the waters are murky and the tide is come in. now what? >> janice: january right. the tide a foot. high tide at 8:30. dealing with some choppy waters. rising waters.
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the good news is we didn't have any storm systems in the area impacting things further conditions are calm right now. visibility was good. temperatures around 1:00 a.m., 1:30 when the boat did hit the bridge was around 39 degrees. and we have been talking about the water temperatures. so the water temperatures are in the mid 40's but anyone who is in the water for a period of a couple of hours, it's -- we're talking about hypothermia where your body starts to shut down it. just cannot handle the cold water and so quickly being submerged in the cold water. but, as far as weather conditions, and when they do an after action review, they are going to look at all of these things. it was calm. you know, it was cold certainly and we're concerned about folks being submerged in the water. but the visibility was very good. 10 miles in and around the area. current temperatures right now in the 30s. so, yes, the one concern we have is that it is cold. and if people are in the water for a duration of time, an hour,
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two hours, three hours, then, you know, it looks dire because your body just cannot handle that being in the water -- those water temperatures for that period of time, you know, without a rescue. >> kayleigh: janice, just to clear something up because early -- and i'm speaking 4:00 a.m. there is reports there could have been visibility issues at 1:30 a.m. you are saying when this took place at 1:30 a.m. christian clear in the video no problems with visibility. >> janice: no fog. winds were light around 3 miles per hour. i don't know the exact chop of the waters in and around that area, but as far as the weather conditions in the vicinity, perfect. perfect conditions. no visibility problems at all. >> brian: right. temperatures about normal. governor wes moore says is he declaring state of emergency. >> we're supposed to have a press conference in a few minutes. i don't know what else they could actually add except for
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talk about resources and thoughts and prayers. but they are trying to rescue as many people as possible. trying to find out who was on that bridge. find out how many vehicles are actually in the water. we don't know if anybody was injured on the ship itself as well as the construction workers. so you have got passengers. >> we know at least one tractor-trailer was on there. then you have the crew members on this cargo ship. there was based in singapore. so, and 30 minutes into a long voyage it's hard to think anything but some type of mechanical or pilot error. >> kayleigh: that's what we need to learn. that is not what we learned. i think as quickly as we can get an speculation we were told it is not intentional. you heard the officer say he has spoken with the jish. no independent occasion of foul play. nevertheless, some sort of insight into mechanical issue. >> lawrence: we heard that the pilots are still on the ship as well. >> kayleigh: yes. larynx lawrence the question is is there investigative agency that has made its way on to the
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ship in the second thing is i know there is a lot of families there are waiting to hear what is the family reunification site. if you were a construction worker or your spouse was, i'm sure you are very concerned right now if you have a family member who was on there, i would love to hear from the officials there on where they can get more information about their loved one as this operation continues. >> brian: kayleigh, do wake the president. it happened at 1:30 in the morning. is it something that you have been awoken for. >> absolutely. president trump would have been awoken. last time this happened was 40 years ago in tampa, florida. a national tragedy. a state of emergency described as mass casualty event so, yes. >> steve: a developing mass casualty event you wake up the president. as you wake up this morning as you look, these are images of baltimore harbor right there. it's patapsco river leading into
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the port of baltimore. right there smack dab in the middle is a thousand foot shipping container ship which at 1:30 this morning ran into one of the support columns to your pointed, lawrence, the two pilots who work in that harbor, they are on that ship. according to the company that manages the ship. the ship is fine. but it's the people who are on that bridge who, you know, right now it's a search and rescue. but it's looking grim given the fact that they have been in the water for five hours. it will be interesting because those two pilots will be able to tell investigators and maybe that's what we're going to hear in the next minute or so when they kick this thing off in maryland. they will be able to tell exactly what happened before they hit that support column. >> lawrence: 52 million tons of cargo crosses that every single year and $80 billion worth of cargo last year at that port

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