Maryland bridge collapse Special Report: Rescue operations underway

this is a

special

report

from NBC News here's Savannah Guthrie good morning everyone we'll be a little early with breaking news. A horrible scene in Baltimore this morning. The Francis Scott Key Bridge was struck by a freighter and

collapse

d overnight. You can see the video on the right. There it is shown that the entire structure seems to break, this is a mile and a half

bridge

over the port of Baltimore. NBC's Tom Costello is right there on the scene for us and Tom, obviously the concern is whoever was on the

bridge

members on the freighter, what can you tell us what's the latest right now.

That's right, this happened at 1:30 this morning, a Singapore-flagged ship, a cargo ship, collided with one of the support structures, one of the pylons, if it supports the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and with that, The entire bridge, as you saw in that video,

collapse

d into the water. It's a stunning scene here and this is a critical artery, the Francis Scott Key Bridge to and around the Port of Baltimore, which as you know is one of the busiest ports in the country and that goes. Creating a huge logistical headache this morning, the governor of Maryland has declared a state of emergency.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buddha, judge in Char, is in contact, I should say, with the governor of Maryland as well, as well as the fire department and Coast Guard

rescue

operations

have been

underway

very early. We are looking for potential victims who may have fallen overboard and we have heard that there may be seven people who fell overboard, maybe more, no one is missing from the boat. We believe, however, the concern is that there may be construction workers on top. the bridge when the bridge was hit and that, as a result, they may have fallen into the water.

This is a massive search and

rescue

operation and is described by some members of the Maryland State Police as an ongoing mass casualty incident. This is right at the critical point. The ey 95 corridor, which of course it is, is the critical artery along the East Coast, so if you plan on driving up and down the East Coast through Baltimore, be aware that you will see traffic affected; Traffic will be directed to avoid 695 and continue. by I95 and 8.95, however, as expected, we now have major emergency

operations

at our location, we are just down the street from this bridge that spans the Patas Riv River, forgive me, and of course it is unlikely given the state of that bridge there is going to be any activity, of course, for some time at this point, it is life saving and rescue operations

underway

.

Yes, so this is the ship that was called DOI, as you said, flying the Singapore flag, as I understand it. It had just left the port of Baltimore, presumably loaded with cargo when you look at the video up close, it appears like the freighter it looked like, it looks very dark when it hits that support structure, you know, one can't speculate, but it looks very, very dark as Hit the support structure, what do you do with that pit? Not only that, but you notice right above what appears to be smoke coming from the ship itself. This is all according to eyewitnesses who also said they thought they saw smoke coming from the ship, so it will clearly be part of this investigation and I must say that all of us who live in the Washington Baltimore metropolitan area and who are very aware of what critical that the Francis Scott Key Bridge is we are amazed at how a single cargo ship could destroy this bridge, how could they have hit the pylon to begin with?

And secondly, how is it possible that this bridge was so vulnerable to being destroyed by a single cargo ship? Yes, and this is a critical port, the Port of Baltimore handles a tremendous amount of shipping volume for the East Coast and this morning all of that is pretty much hitting the pause button as this ongoing search and rescue operation continues. It's still dark there and we're looking at some aerial imagery, Tom, I don't know if you can see, it looks like we've got some new imagery in aerial imagery, so we have to wait for the sun to come up to see how. extensive, this is a mile and a half long bridge, as you mentioned, it is known to be the Key Bridge in Baltimore Harbor, but part of 695 I 695, a very busy area, as you know, can you tell me if I mean you see some kind of part of the bridge that appears still standing and leads towards you.

I mean, is it fair to say do you have any idea from your point of view if the entire bridge collapsed or is it a partial collapse of the bridge? uh, you know, Savannah, I'm going to Here's what you have a view just as good, if not better, than mine because I'm about a mile from the road and of course we can't go over that road because it goes right to the bridge , but these aerial shots that we're looking at really provide us with the best perspective and to me this looks, for all intents and purposes, like a total collapse of the bridge, maybe only a small part of it is still standing, but this is just an incredible series of events that have brought.

This, this bridge here in Baltimore, well, like you said, there are up to 20 people potentially missing. The shipping company says that all its cargo, Shiite employees are accounted for. It's good news. There are

report

s of construction workers who were on the bridge. at that time and who can be missing in the water and talk about the conditions there you're standing, it's right there, it's very, very cold, we understand that the water there, the Patapsco River, is about 48 degrees Fahit, which of course raises concerns. of hypothermia very, very quickly, well, and this happened at 1:30 in the morning, so if someone had gone into that water, they would be very concerned about survivability at this point, the temperature is about 35° here on earth, uh and us.

It's a little windy here. Some family members. I'm told some relatives of construction workers have gathered at a nearby gas station just down the street waiting for any word on whether their loved ones are safe. but we don't have any word on that right now we're waiting for a press conference we're expecting momentarily from the authorities of the state of Maryland, uh, the State Police, we believe and we're waiting for more information and you're right, the number of potential victims has been more or less very very uh up all over the map we have heard seven we have heard up to 20 the problem is that we don't know how many cars or people may have been on the bridge at 1:30 in the morning and the water entered, so yeah, there's a lot of unanswered questions here, but just an incredible series of events with that bridge collapsing and not only that, having video of the moment of impact, uh, it's really amazing, like I mentioned, the NTSB will.

I will be leading the investigation, but we are still in the emergency rescue stage and I just want to mention that a few moments ago we showed a makeshift podium being set up there. Officials are expected to brief the media within moments. We will continue here live and we will broadcast it live as we hope to get a little more information, as you said, there is a lot more that is not known at this time, Tom then it is known, but it is important to note that the authorities are have referred immediately. to this as a mass casualty event, a tragedy and a shocking one, and to go back to this bridge and the history of the bridge, it's almost 50 years old, it opened in 1977 and the other roads through this particular area, which if If you look at a map, it's the Waterway, a very complex Waterway, one of the largest ports in the United States and the bridge is, uh, the bridge was opened as an alternative to the tunnels in that area.

It has had some renovations recently in the 80's. but Tom, I am surprised, as are you and other witnesses, that a cargo ship hitting a pylon, a major support structure, could take down a bridge for a mile and a half long, yes, that's right, and I think one of the key questions for researchers. It will be who was piloting the ship, as you know, when you arrive at busy ports in this country, very often the captain of the ship essentially has to hand over control of the bridge to a local pilot who gets on the ship to sail. in the waters to sail towards the port itself, so we don't know if it was the captain who was responsible for the ship at that very moment or if they had a local harbor captain, so to speak, or a pilot, I should say, who was in board at that time we just don't know and forgive me for not having all the proper language on this.

I'm not an expert on ports and I'm sure we have them in our audience, people who are very familiar with this, but this is a very, very complicated port with a huge amount of shipping volume carrying a huge amount of cargo. on and off the east coast. And I will tell you that if you travel in and around the Baltimore area, you know. how often do you see huge container ships here, there are cruise ships here, there are a lot of car parks where new cars are displayed before they are loaded or unloaded from these ships, there is a huge amount of activity in this area, so miss the Francis Scott Key Bridge and then having this port or this port so dramatically impacted will have a dramatic impact on the Baltimore region today certainly economically but also, of course, just logistically and transportation, but right now our main concern is how many people can have been on the bridge and may be in the water, yes, even potentially several construction workers who may have been working at the time.

Look at this aerial shot here, Tom, and it's hard to make out, frankly, it's dark, it's not clear where we are. We're looking there because there were conflicting reports about whether the cargo ship had sunk or not. Yes, I heard she may have gone under. Savannah. I do not have that. I do not have that information confirmed. It is one. Of the reasons why we hope to get more clarity from Maryland state authorities with this press conference at any time I think we want to know if in fact that boat sank we want to know how many people can still be in the water How many people can have been on the bridge?

How many are they looking for? To know the scope of search and rescue offerings, we know the operations. Rather we know that the Baltimore City Fire and Rescue Department has been here. Surrounding fire departments also responded. The Coast Guard also responded, but. We're waiting for the details of that and we're going to hear from officials who may get some of those answers when they step up to the microphones in Baltimore, in this breaking news story this morning about the Key Bridge collapse. in the port of Baltimore let's listen to everyone well, everyone ready, well, good morning, my name is Chief James Wallace, I am the chief of the Baltimore City Fire Department.

I'm joined this morning by our Mayor, Brandon Scott, Council President, Mosby Councilman, Porter County Executive, Johnny Oesi, and Baltimore County Fire Chief Joanne briefed us this morning: There will be an update on the operation. search and rescue that is ongoing right now, so at approximately 0140 hours this morning our 911 center sent a call to the Baltimore City Fire Department for a report. of a water rescue on the Bapsa River in the Key Bridge area as units responded, they began to receive numerous calls indicating that there were several people in the water at some point during that chain of call events, we began to receive indications that it is A ship may have crashed into the Key Bridge.

We obtained more information through multiple calls that the Key Bridge. Parts of the Key Bridge had collapsed at approximately 1:50 a.m. Our first unit arrived on scene and reported a complete collapse of the Key Bridge. Um, we were also given information at the time that there were probably several people on the bridge at the time of the collapse and that there were several people in the water as a result. We were able to get two people out of the water, one person refused service. and refused to transport, essentially that person was not injured, however there was another person that was transported to a local trauma center who is in very serious condition at this time.

We have multiple air assets from the Maryland State Police and also the Baltimore Police Department. as multiple marine assets from across the region, including Baltimore City and Baltimore County, as well as multiple local and state police, agencies, National Resources Police, BPD Special Option Unit is here, Maryland State Police is here, we have multiple resources, we are still very At this point we are in an active search and rescue posture and will continue to be for some time. We have a large area that we have to search, this includes on the subsurface surface of the water as well as on the deck of the boat.

We believe that at this time we may be searching, we may be searching for more than seven people, that is the most recent information we have, withoutHowever, what I will say is that the information that I am giving you right now is as of now, that is what I know right now, this is a very large incident that involves a very large footprint, multiple agencies are operating, so Therefore, the information is subject to change as we get more information from Intel and as our teams work throughout the morning, over the next 8 to 12 hours, we hope to continue to see our assets and the marine ones operating on the water and in the air up.

We need to do a damage assessment of the ship before we can board it and we need to continue our search underground, which is. including different types of sonar, we have sidescan sonar, we have other sonar capabilities here, we have underwater unmanned aerial vehicles that we are working with and throughout the night we have also been working with infrared technology both from the air and on the surface of the water. So I'm going to end here by saying this. It continues to be a search and rescue operation, it continues to be a very dynamic operation with multiple local, state and federal resources involved.

With that, I'll turn it over to our mayor, Mayor Brandon Scott, uh, thank you, thank you, boss, uh, everyone. it's an unthinkable tragedy uh we have to uh first and foremost pray pray for all those who are affected uh those families I pray for our first respondents and I thank them uh all of them working together uh city state local to make sure that we are working through this tragedy , this is an ongoing investigation that we are having right now, we will continue as you heard from Chief Wallace for as long as we have to do it, we will, but we have to think about the families and the people affected, people that we have to treat to find a safe place, this is what we should be focusing on right now and we will continue to work in partnership with all parts of the government to do that. everything we can to get through the other side of this tragedy and with that I will hand it over to the County Executive.

Thank you, Mayor Scott. I think we all woke up this morning to an unspeakable tragedy, as the mayor indicated. We know we all woke up this morning to an unspeakable tragedy. that there will be families and individuals affected by this regardless of what happens the rest of the way so I would just echo the mayor in raising prayers for those who are affected, but I would also ask that our residents pray for our first responders um. You know, they've been on the scene since very early in the morning, not only conducting initial search and rescue operations, but also planning additional operations as the sun rises, and you know, the work that they do cannot be underestimated and I just want to thank them. for everything they are doing and what they will do in the hours and days to come.

We know we have a long road ahead of us not only in search and rescue, but also in Fallout after this. I think we need to have our attention on the search and rescue efforts currently and just here along with 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 that they have offered, as well as the federal partners that I already communicated with the sea. I have spoken with the governor. We have listened to the Secretary of Transportation. So we collectively thank everyone for their thoughts and well wishes.

But again, this is a very active situation and we want to just thank the boss and our teams for all the great work they are doing and with that I will hand the responsibility back to the boss. Thank you, county. Weski, ask some questions and answers right now. We are simply going to ask questions so that everyone is present. Boss, can you tell us where the ship's crew is? You also mentioned that two people who made the first 911 call were rescued and there were reports that it was a crew on the deck of the ship working at that point, can you confirm?

Any of that information, the most recent information we have on the ship's crew is that they are still on board the ship. There has been CS between the ship's crew and the Coast Guard, so as part of the overall operation, we communicated through the Coast Guard with the ship and I'm sorry, it's your other questions, they took two people who did the first 911 call. I don't know who made that call yet, okay, and there were other workers on the deck of the ship on this or bridge deck at this point we had heard that information, can you confirm that they told us that there were workers On Bridge?

We still have to confirm that, we will work with mdta, you know, obviously, Get that information on how many cars were on that ship. The last question on the bridge deck at the time of the CSE. You know, I don't have a number. I can tell you that our sonar has detected the presence of vehicles submerged in it. water, I don't have the account yet, boss, you mentioned more than seven people you are looking for. We have heard reports from up to 20 people. Can you just paint a clearer picture of how many people actually fell? in the water how many people you might be looking to rescue and also if you can give an idea of ​​how many vehicles, although I may not have the answer but really only c.

Yeah, I'll start with the last one, so I don't know how. There are still many vehicles, I know that we have detected the presence of vehicles up to the number between 7 and 20, which has been a dynamic count throughout the morning, just since we have not determined that number yet, we believe. that at least seven are involved in that at least seven at this point fell into the water yes ma'am yes and I know you said the crew was on the deck position do we know if any of the crew were part of these in At least seven people who may have been in the water.

We don't worry about the surroundings. There is not much fish. Focus on, so we will be guided by our diving teams. We will determine what the temperature of the water is. The other problem we have there is. This water is influenced by the current so at the moment we think the ti is returning which adds a bit of challenge to us and we can also dive in these conditions but we have to take many factors into play. that there may be trauma involved, they've been in the water for an extended period of time, but also remember that we're fighting the Darkness, so you know it's very possible that we have someone in there that we haven't seen yet, and how they work closer to the debris field, you know, obviously they'll make those determinations, but we're going to rely on the experts, who are our dive masters, who are here, our dive team, to tell us when they think we've reached that point of not survival, yes Mr.

J. Chief, was there any indication that there was a problem on the ship? Don't we have that information regarding the investigation? I would refer it to the police authorities. My focus since 1:40 this morning has been on the rescue operation, so so far there has been no indication that any type of emergency dispatch came from that ship. I have no information about that man. Have you been able to talk to the pilot, the American pilot? on that bridge, the boat pilot, yeah, we haven't talked to the boat pilot, the rescue personnel, the rescue operation, we haven't interacted here, we, I don't have an agent, sorry, yeah, I don't.

I am not the age or gender of any of the patients. One patient refused service. In reality, he was not injured. The second patient, however, was seriously injured and is at an area trauma center. Do you include them among the seven, at least seven people that we don't have? We still don't know if they are part of that seven, that the patient is seriously injured enough that we haven't been able to inform that patient, that the number seven comes from people who witnessed where that number came from or is it just from the sonar that It shocked him.

No, that was the initial information we got when we got to the scene, that number and that number again, like I said before, has fluctuated, right, that seven has been a constant number, how many ages, oh wow, that's dozens, I mean locally? You know, the fire department, as far as Baltimore County, is here. Howard County is here. Harford, uh, was here. PG was here, um, Anna rondle, um, of course, the city of Baltimore and many of those agencies are here by virtue of the fact that they may have the

special

ized equipment that we need during an emergency. incidents like this, so we're bringing in the specific equipment for the operation right now and then even the law enforcement agencies have a lot of the same Marine Ops equipment as us, since the incident is so big that we're trying to force multiply and bring in as many resources as we can so we can really cover a large area for a search.

What about what doesn't? We have not been able to confirm that we actually have an active fuel spill from The Vessel um we have had diesel fuel odors, the Department of Maryland, the environment is here as well as the Coast Guard so they would take the lead on that as well We hope that as the sun comes up a little bit, with the air assets that are ready to arrive. a much better picture if we have a fuel spill what has the impact been so far yes the

maryland

state police have been here um foxtrot is also working on this there are two air assets at this time um i don't know if we won't bring more , but right now they're the two main, you know, aerial reconnaissance of something in open water is an invaluable resource and we've been very fortunate to have it because as we leave people in the dark, the water to search they have that degree of oversight of those assets, so that's been an invaluable resource for us Mr.

Mayor M Mr. Executive, we're talking about search and rescue, I know that and that's where the focus is right now. They woke me up. With this news we have all woken up with this news. I've seen the video. What do you think of the reality of this incident? What are you thinking about what you've seen and what this community has experienced now? Well, this is it. a tragedy that you can never quite imagine and uh I was awake when Chief Wallers called me, but you would never think that you would physically see the Key Bridge collapsed like that, it looked like something out of an action movie and you just think.

The most important thing is what we should all be thinking about right now, none other than those families and people who are affected and those people who are risking their lives right now, not just in Baltimore City and Baltimore County. Baltimore, but across the state to try to save lives, that should be our focus, the preservation of life because no one wants that to happen. Only someone in their family, someone they know, uh uh, will be hurt in an incident like this, Mayor Brandon Scott, other officials, James Wall is the fire chief of The city of Baltimore with breaking news this morning is on your screen the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the Port of Baltimore in the water this morning the Patasco River and we learned quite a bit from that press conference.

I want to bring in Tom Costello, our correspondent, who is on the scene, the most important thing is that at least seven people are still missing this morning and right now there are Navy units searching for survivors in The Frigid Waters and in the Patapsco River, the cruise ship is on Your Vision, right there, it's still afloat and we're Officials there told you the crew remains aboard that ship, but you can see what happened at 1:30 this morning and I think we have too the video if you join us now at 6:40 on the east coast. A cargo ship leaving the Port of Baltimore, owned by Synergy Marine Group and carrying Maris carago, crashes into a support structure on the Key Bridge in Baltimore and this morning there are reports, according to officials, that the entire bridge has collapsed as the sun rises.

On the east coast we are starting to get a better view. An aerial view showed cars on the bridge at the time officials say sonar detected the presence of cars in the river. Two people were pulled from the river this morning, one unharmed and the other. He is said to have very serious injuries and this is a search and rescue mission right now Tom Costello is with me on the Patapsco River with the water temperature about 48 degrees to say that time is of the essence. This happened at 130 1:40 this morning around 5 hours ago Rescuers have a lot of work ahead of them as they search for survivors here Absolutely I will just tell you that standing on the ground here near the bridge it is very cold out here we are about 35° with the wind blowing uh it's about 45° or so on the water we checked with the University of Minnesota how long someone could survive if they were in the water and within 7 minutes someone could face extreme exhaustion and then potentially even if It has protection. clothes and a float, equipment of some kind, at best you usually have an hour, so we are very concerned right now about the seven people who are missing and if at this momentWe're in the water with that kind of exposure. could turn out to be life threatening uh a couple more headlines about the fact that this has been a massive response from Baltimore and all the surrounding counties sending their own firefighters and marine personnel.

We have a helical option in the air above us, did you hear the Fire Chief talk about using those aerial assets to search the water, that's largely what we've been hearing overhead, I should say as they look for signs of survivors in the water and the other headline is: "You know, we didn't know Savannah." Going into this conversation you and I didn't know how many people were missing, we had heard up to 20, now we know 7 and separately we didn't know if the ship had sunk because it was so dark we couldn't see now. In fact, we know the ship is there, the crew members survived, no one was injured on the deck of the ship, and we are told that rescue teams do not want to board that ship until they have done a full assessment of the damage. and they know if it's safe, so there's a ton to do with this right now.

Absolutely these very frigid waters of the Patapsco River outside of Baltimore right now are the focus of an intense search for survivors of this extraordinary event where this cargo ship crashed. a key bridge support structure in Baltimore and appears to tear it down perhaps completely. We will continue to watch this story. It will have full coverage on NBC News Now at nbcnews.com and, of course, will appear in a few moments today. now we're returning it to your local programming I'm Savannah Guthrie in New York, this has been a special report from NBC News, thanks for watching, stay up to date with the latest news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social media.