Latest / Kvetch & Release / Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse in Baltimore Maryland
Transcript
- 0:00I was shocked to see the story of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing after
- 0:09a container ship. Joining me to discuss this and break it all down for
- 0:12us because it is truly remarkable what occurred. Is Tony Grace, anchor and
- 0:17reporter at CTV National News. Tony, this video, it is stunning,
- 0:22quite frankly, could you take us through what led to the collapse? Yeah,
- 0:26John, just a shocking video. And I was thinking the same thing
- 0:30this morning when, like you, I was getting ready to go about my
- 0:33day, checking in online to see what was happening, get a sense of
- 0:36the news day coming up, and you look at this and it was just
- 0:41stunning, just stunning, I mean, just a shocking, shocking spectacle to
- 0:44watch that bridge come down in a matter of seconds. So here's what we
- 0:49know so far. We know that the ship that slammed into that support pillar
- 0:55is called the Dally. It's owned by a company in Singapore, It's operated
- 0:59by another company out of Singapore, and it was leaving Baltimore, the Port
- 1:04of Baltimore to head into the Atlantic Ocean and then on to Sri Lanka.
- 1:07So it was at the beginning of a very very long journey. We don't
- 1:11know exactly what was in the containers that was carrying, but we know that
- 1:15at some point the ship lost power. The crew reportedly issued a may day
- 1:19call to authorities on land, and after that it hit the bridge and then
- 1:26you saw what happened. That massive section of the bridge came down. Everything
- 1:30pretty much but the approaches. It's a two and a half kilometer long bridge,
- 1:34two point six k long, and it's a key artery in Baltimore,
- 1:38and by the way, it's not just a key transportation artery in and of
- 1:42itself, but that is a key shipping artery below. The real questions now
- 1:49are centering to run a few things John. First of all, the humanity
- 1:53of it, because at this point what we understand is that there are six
- 1:57construction workers who are missing an unaccounted for construction workers who were on the bridge,
- 2:01we understand filling potholes at the time when this happened. They are missing,
- 2:06unaccounted for. There were two people rescued at some point between the point
- 2:09of impact and daylight. Two people rescued, one of them taken to hospital
- 2:15in serious condition, another one of them reportedly uninjured. Thankfully, so we
- 2:19know of at least eight people who may in some way be victims of this
- 2:23collapse. What we don't know is whether there are any more. The National
- 2:28Transportation and Safety Board chair Jennifer Hammondy was on just a few minutes ago and
- 2:31she was asked, look, you know there were reports of vehicles also going
- 2:36into the water. There were reports of more people going into the water.
- 2:38She couldn't confirm that, and she didn't want to get into numbers. So
- 2:42that's what we know up to this point about sort of the facts surrounding this
- 2:47horrible collapse. Oh, it's just it's an absolutely, you know, unbelievable
- 2:53situation. We've heard the president though of the United States saying like, hey,
- 2:58we're gonna we're gonna pay to get this thing built as quickly as possible.
- 3:00Right, we've heard that. And something else that he also said was
- 3:04something that we were hearing from authorities higher and higher up the chain as the
- 3:08morning went on, And that is that big question, of course, why
- 3:13did it happen? And the answer from many authorities being that there's no indication
- 3:17that it was terror related. I mean, that's I think a question that
- 3:21a lot of people naturally would ask when a huge piece of infrastructure like this
- 3:25comes crumbling down in seconds, right a shocking scene. You have to wonder
- 3:30if there's something nefarious going on, But the FBI saying there's doesn't appear to
- 3:36be any links to terrorism here, and the President saying that as well,
- 3:38but again underscoring that the main point right now is the people. Is focusing
- 3:45on the families who are waiting for word, on people who still aren't accounted
- 3:50for after this. I should also mention that this bridge carries around or carried
- 3:55around thirty one thousand vehicles a day. John. This happened in the middle
- 4:00of the night, right one p thirty in the morning, And something that's
- 4:02not lost on authorities is that if this had happened during the morning rush or
- 4:06the afternoon rush, for example, we could be dealing with a much more
- 4:11serious and a much wider scale casualty situation. Now we understand that that mayday
- 4:16call from the ship to the authorities on shore is what allowed them to get
- 4:21alerts out immediately and stop traffic from heading onto the bridge and perhaps you know,
- 4:28preventing casualties at the same time. So a lot of pieces coming together
- 4:32here and a lot of information based on what we know, suggesting that you
- 4:36know this, this certainly could have been much a much bigger mass casualty event
- 4:41than it already is. Lucky situation that it wasn't worse than as it turned
- 4:45out, but again, you know, just horrific right now. Thoughts with
- 4:47everybody who has been affected, and we'll be finding out more about that as
- 4:50the story unfolds. Tony, thank you so much for your time this afternoon.
- 4:54Okay, thanks so much, John, have a good day you as
- 4:56well. Tony Grace is an anchor and reporter at CTV National News who was
- 5:00talking there about the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott key Bridge after a strike by
- 5:05a container ship. The whole thing right there just went down, absolutely wild.