Baltimore bridge collapsed roughly 2 minutes after emergency call

Following the latest news from Baltimore, officials now say rescue workers are still searching for several missing people after a

bridge

collapse, a container ship crashed into a support column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, a major thoroughfare around from Baltimore, around 1:30 a.m. m. this. A large portion of the span then fell, sending vehicles and people into the water. This continues to be a very active search and rescue mission and there is not a single recourse for us to postpone its deployment. I have already authorized the deployment of everything. of air, land and sea resources to ensure this search and rescue operation is carried out with the utmost intent Nicole skanga has been following this story for us all day in Maryland Nicole, it's a pleasure to have you with us, you have new reports about what happened. on the boat in the

minutes

before the

bridge

hit, what can she tell us?

Yes, I want to summarize a few things. Robert, it's good to be with you first and mostly, I just heard from the Baltimore County Executive, she told me about 2

minutes

. elapsed between the time the pilot and crew first notified Maryland authorities that something was wrong with the container ship Dolly and the time the collision occurred, at approximately 1:30 a.m. m., that's how quickly the local authorities had to take action to close traffic. to and from the bridge we are also learning from local and federal law enforcement officials that the tugboats on the dolly were loose prior to the collision that occurred, which is standard operating procedure for tugboats escorting these large container ships. out of port outside of your docking station, but there doesn't need to be an escort there, uh, when, as you go under the Francis Scott Key Bridge, so that's an important note there and also very important for the law enforcement authorities, uh, in the coming days and specifi

call

y the NTSB, which has launched its independent investigation into this, is coming on board the ship.

The NTSB was unable to get on the ship today to have those recorders determine what time the power was turned off and what time the ship's controls were activated. I really got out of control here. Law enforcement told me, through internal briefing documents, that there were alarms that went off aboard the dolly, that the pilot and crews actually had seconds to run some system checks and that it was at that time. that the system checks failed that they contacted and notified Maryn Nicole authorities, you are tracking the impact that this has not only on a national level as it will play out in Congress perhaps in the coming weeks, but also what it actually means for people immediately afterward.

What are you learning? Yes, and I absolutely mean, I've heard community members

call

the bridge a symbol, a landmark, a hallmark of the city. We heard Secretary Budajudge call it the Cathedral of American Infrastructure. It is also economically very important, the second busiest port in the East. Seaboard in 2023 will be responsible for 52.3 million tons of foreign cargo worth $80 billion. 30,000 vehicles a day cross the bridge, which is a whopping 11.5 million over the course of a year, but I'm only talking to people here on the ground who have come down to take a look. On the bridge they can't believe what they're seeing we talked to a person who works at the port his name is John Zafia listen I was walking the dog last night around 1:30 I heard this loud bang and I almost just did it you know?

I thought maybe it was an accident, but none of this ability is going to affect all of our work there. No ship can enter or leave and that is investment at the community level and, of course, investment at the federal level. At the level we heard today from officials, all the way up to the president, they promised that every penny that the city of Baltimore needs and its reconstruction will be given to the city and today I asked Senator Cen what the financial impact will be, he said. We're not even there yet. I can't even give you a dollar or a price, but not even a ballpark figure.

Robert Nicole, you have been doing a fantastic job. I know you woke up early in Maryland on CBS mornings working. all day we'll let you get back to your reporting, but thank you for joining us at the same time, our White House correspondent, Ed O'Keefe, the senior political correspondent joins us now from the White House. Ed tells us more about how President Biden is handling. This Bob was briefed early this morning and spent most of the morning with the top SIDAs who deal with these types of local and state issues across the country to handle it, spoke with the governor, the mayor and other officials and before leaving for A series of events in North Carolina this afternoon made it clear that his intention is for the federal government to pay for the reconstruction and cleanup of this bridge collapse, which will leave many questions about how exactly he can say that. should happen and how exactly it would be paid for and then the same expression of feeling about who would pay for this.

He said: I hope that Congress will work with me on it, so in essence he is indicating that it is going to require some type of legislation or at least authorization from Congress working with him to make this happen I appreciate that, for the second time in two weeks, a bridge that feeds the Interstate 95 corridor along the East Coast has fallen into the water or been condemned and is no longer usable and this is a pres The other one is right there in Providence Rhode Island, where they discovered that a reconstruction project ongoing needs to be completely scrapped and restarted and is the third incident along I95 in the last year.

The other is the partial bridge. collapse in Philadelphia due to a tanker fire last year, this is a president who, of course, has put much of his legacy on the line in terms of infrastructure, rebuilding the country, creating jobs and showing that the government You can do great things and use your spending. power to make this happen, so at least here in the White House this is now seen as a great opportunity or challenge that must be met to demonstrate once again to an increasingly skeptical public that the government can step up to the plate. face and solve a problem that has been created. for an unforeseen disaster like the one we've seen in Baltimore, so you can expect that here in the White House in the coming weeks and months, if not years, the president will be very concerned about rebuilding this bridge and rebuilding a city that he knows. well, because he has come and gone from there and through it throughout his career, as a senator from neighboring Delaware and then as vice president and president, we were with him last year or in 2022 when he visited the port of Baltimore to create infrastructure . ads, he is very aware and sensitive to this type of disaster and what it is going to do to such an important port city on the east coast.

This is the story of the day, there's no doubt about it, but President Biden and Vice President Harris continue to campaign as the 2024 race heats up, what are you seeing on that front? Amid everything in Baltimore, the two don't campaign together that often. Bob and them went to Raleigh, North Carolina, today to appear with that state's term-limited governor, Roy Cooper, and the guy they'd like to see succeed as Democratic attorney general, and North Carolina is a state. which Democrats continue to believe could be affordable for them in an environment where the Republican Party has nominated a fairly conservative candidate to run for governor. and a state that Donald Trump won by only small digits, they believe is unviable in a year in which the former president continues to face legal problems and problems such as access to abortion.

Services, health care costs, concerns about democracy are on the ballot in a state that is changing much like Georgia and other parts of the South, so the fact that they both went together and tonight appear in a fundraiser in that state is a sign of how seriously they are taking it. Remember we're talking about about seven battleground states around the world. country, some maybe only talking about six, the Biden campaign wants North Carolina to be the seventh and the visit they are making today is a good example of the type of visits they will continue to make and the type of money and attention they will receive.

We will continue to invest in the state, especially if places like Georgia appear to be increasingly out of reach due to the changing politics of that battleground state. Ed o'keef, thank you very much.