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American Morning
Crews Await Daybreak to Search Collapsed Bridge
Aired August 02, 2007 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Breaking news.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So lucky to be alive. On the way down, I thought I was dead. I literally thought I was dead.
GOV. TIM PAWLENTY (R), MINNESOTA: This is a catastrophe of historical proportions.
CHETRY: Devastating pictures and stories of horror.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And she just told my fiance, the bridge I'm on is collapsing, I've got to go. We haven't heard anything since.
CHETRY: Why did a Minnesota bridge buckle and crumble over the Mississippi River? People, cars, trucks, a school bus in a free fall.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw dust everywhere and people were screaming.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know that there was at least 50 vehicles, probably much more than that, on the bridge at the time of the collapse.
CHETRY: Dramatic new I-Report pictures and the search for answers on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: And welcome. A lot of breaking news on this Thursday, August 2nd. I'm Kiran Chetry. This is a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. We welcome our viewers from around the world also watching us on CNN INTERNATIONAL.
My co-host, John Roberts, is making his way to the scene in Minneapolis right now. He is going to be joining us in a matter of minutes.
The latest information, though, about this bridge collapse, I should let you know about it, seven people confirmed killed. The Minneapolis Star Tribune though is reporting this morning that number has grown to nine.
They are also reporting that 20 people are still missing, some 60 others were taken to the hospital. They estimate about 50 to 60 cars were on the bridge at the time of the buckling and collapse. The search stopped at nightfall and we will expect it to resume at first light there. More than 60 people, again, were injured, taken to several different hospitals in the area. And one of those hospitals said that six of their patients are in critical condition this morning.
The governor of Minnesota has called it a catastrophe of historic proportions. Here is a look at the scene late last night where the bridge fell on both ends. It was packed with rush hour traffic. This was just after 6:00 p.m.
Cars dropped as -- plunged down as far as 64 feet. The Star Tribune is quoting some drivers who say that they felt it buckle and sway. Others say it felt like they were floating.
"All I heard was noise," one eyewitness says as the bridge gave way, and then water splashed onto her windshield. She says: "I just thought I was going under. I rolled my windows down real quick, so maybe I'd have some escape. And then it stopped."
She actually got out without a scratch. Rescue crews responded with boats as well as dive gear. That collapse happened again just after 6:00 local time. The bridge is part of Interstate 35. It spans the Mississippi River. Estimates are that up to 50 vehicles, 50 to 60 fell into the water.
And out of -- one of the most dramatic stories out of all of this, a school bus full of children, there were 52 kids on the bus at the time, they were returning from a field trip with a summer youth program, there you see the bus, they were all able to get out through the back of the bus as that bus ended up teetering precariously right along the guard rail, did not go into the water. There were no serious injuries, but eight of the kids were taken to a hospital. Two staff members who were on the bus were also injured.
Now this bridge we're talking about is 40 years old. Construction crews were doing some resurfacing work on it. One of the eight workers on that crew has been reported missing still. The governor says that the bridge was inspected last back in 2006, also inspected in 2005, and they did not find any structural problems there.
There was a report though from 2001 that found what it called "fatigue problems," but said that those problems were not likely to be serious. Ultimately the report recommended that replacement of the bridge was not necessary.
And again, as we said, it's a 40-year-old truss bridge, typically not built with the same amount of redundancies. These are structural supports to support more weight that they like to build with now.
A little bit later we're going to be talking with a structural engineer about what perhaps went wrong here and caused that bridge to collapse. Some of the most incredible pictures of the tragedy were shot by a teenager. He arrived on the scene just a few minutes after the collapse. And he used his high school press credentials to get close enough to document the disaster. His name is Andrew Worrall. He is in Roseville, Minnesota. He joins me on the phone right now.
Andrew, thanks for being with us this morning.
ANDREW WORRALL, TOOK FIRST PICTURES OF COLLAPSE: Not a problem.
CHETRY: So you're 19 years old. You just graduated high school in June. And you used your high school press credentials to get close enough to the bridge to take some of these pictures you're taking right now.
What was it like when you first arrived on-scene?
WORRALL: You know, there was a lot of chaos and I think the first thing people think of with chaos is people running around. It wasn't that kind of chaos. It was more like people gathering on bridges, just clogging every possible way to get through.
And emergency crews working as hard as they could to get down to the riverbank and get to people stuck or under water.
CHETRY: So at this time when you arrived, what -- did you get -- you got there about 15 minutes or so after this happened?
WORRALL: Yes.
CHETRY: Were the cars that were stopped a few feet before the part of the bridge that collapsed, were they trying to move? How were people I guess directing what people were supposed to do as the rescue effort began?
WORRALL: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question? I cut out a second.
CHETRY: It's OK. I was just wondering, how did they coordinate that rescue effort right -- a couple of minutes after, how did they make sure that cares that were halfway on to where the bridge had fallen didn't try to back up or drive away?
How were they controlling that situation as they looked for survivors?
WORRALL: It seemed like most people that were inside those cars were smart enough not to move at all. A lot of people reportedly had on their emergency breaks. The rescue crews went down with tethered ropes, on body boards, and they got those people out without even really moving the car at all and just left the cars there.
CHETRY: Yes. Because some of the scenes are so eerie and we just see these cars, some of them flipped on top of each other, some of them stopped what looks like five or 10 feet from the edge of the breakage of that bridge. Were you able to see any people in the water that needed rescuing? WORRALL: I was not able to get that close. The authorities were backing off, the media as well as pedestrians. And I did not see anyone in the water or getting rescued from the water at all.
CHETRY: What was it that struck you the most that you saw when you got on the scene?
WORRALL: You know, to be honest, the bridge, just the condition of it was just shocking for me, to see parts of it just absolutely gone. And part of it just sitting on the water with cars almost intact right on top of it. The school bus was just -- it made the heart drop when I saw that.
CHETRY: And the school bus, what position was it located? We see some of the shots. It looks like it's up against a guardrail?
WORRALL: Yes. It looked like it was up against a guardrail. It looked like the front tires had just barely made it over a peak of the concrete that was broken. And that was also partially supporting it.
CHETRY: When you were there, were you close enough that you were speaking to people who were on the bridge at the time and who had managed to just by sheer luck not be in one of the cars that went into the water?
WORRALL: Those people were around. I did not speak to any of them. I was just taking pictures.
CHETRY: What type of impact has it had on the community?
WORRALL: You know, I think it's just one of those things where it kind of brings people together in one single cause where everyone has the same goal, and that is to get as many home safely as possible.
CHETRY: Yes. And when you look at the pictures, I mean, you still see smoke rising out of some of these cars. Apparently the rescue effort is going to continue this morning, although they are calling it more of a recovery.
They believe that 20 people are still missing. It's really just devastating when you think about it, that these are people just trying to come home from a day's work and a bridge that they probably crossed without thinking of it every single day just gave way.
WORRALL: Yes, exactly. And I've crossed that bridge many times going into downtown, going to church, going to Twins games. And just to think something like this could just happen any day is just horrifying.
CHETRY: And you say if you would've decided to come a little bit earlier to see the batting practice, you probably would've been on the bridge at the time.
WORRALL: That probably would have been about the time I would have been crossing the bridge, yes. CHETRY: Wow. All right. Well, Andrew, thank you for giving us those pictures and letting us take a look at what you were able to see on the scene. Andrew Worrall, a high school student, who came to the scene just a few minutes after that collapse. Andrew, thanks.
Also, Will Farley actually saw the bridge collapse yesterday. He spoke with Anderson Cooper last night. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: With us on the scene, I want to go to the phone with Will Farley. He actually saw the bridge collapse. He was driving on the Cedar Avenue Bridge, which is the older stone structure you have been seeing in the background in a lot of these pictures.
Will, what time were you on the scene? What did you see?
WILL FARLEY, EYEWITNESS: I was just leaving my girlfriend's house at, like, 6:00. We were driving into the Dinkytown area, which is a college community campus area, at which point, when we're driving, we saw a giant cloud of smoke and dust and debris.
And, immediately, we thought it was a fire. But at which point we started driving over 35W, we realized, the bridge has collapsed. At that point, my girlfriend and myself drove down on an off-road to the Mississippi River and just watched in horror as construction workers sat there puzzled, and onlooker-bys and -- onlookers, excuse me, were scared to death.
COOPER: So, you were actually on the bridge and got off on an off-ramp before getting to the point that it had collapsed? Is that correct?
FARLEY: We were driving over the bridge.
COOPER: OK.
FARLEY: It -- Dinkytown is 4th Street University. It kind of crosses over the 35 area, where there is massive construction. It's just -- it was just chaotic. It has been for the last couple weeks.
COOPER: You know...
(CROSSTALK)
FARLEY: And my girlfriend told me, she's like, if this -- if she should would have known the road was open, she would have taken that bridge home, and she would have been involved in it as well. So...
COOPER: We have heard so many different reports. One person said the bridge started to buckle. It went up. It came down. Another person talked about an eerie silence that seemed to go on for some 10 minutes after the collapse before they started to hear sirens.
What did you witness in those first moments after you pulled off the off-ramp?
FARLEY: In the first moments, everybody -- nobody was doing anything. Everybody was in -- was in utter horror. They were puzzled. They were scared and confused.
My girlfriend didn't want to go. I walked under the bridge and, at which point, the bridge had collapsed on top of a bunch of train cars. And people were trying to wedge their way between the train cars to get out and -- get out and try to save people in the river. So, I mean, it was chaos.
COOPER: Did -- could you see the river from where you were? And if so, what did you see in the river?
FARLEY: I wasn't able to see the river. I refused to crawl between the train cars, because, at that point, I wasn't sure if the bridge was stable or not.
But it looks like a lot of passerby-ers were attempting to take pictures with their camera phones. And it sounds like there was couple looker-by-ers that were also trying to save lives, too. So, it was chaos down there.
COOPER: How long did you stay on the scene for?
FARLEY: Probably around 15 minutes, at which point we couldn't stay there any longer. It was just -- it was too emotional, a lot of people screaming from apartments, just could not -- couldn't believe what was happening.
I mean, this is one of the major roads in Minnesota coming into the Twin Cities. And, during rush hour, I can't even imagine what it would be like to be on that bridge.
COOPER: So, you actually -- you saw smoke before you actually knew what was going on?
FARLEY: We saw a giant dust cloud, and, at which point, I mean, we realized it wasn't a fire. And, I mean, we knew there was a lot of construction going on around there. But, when you see it -- when you start driving over it and you see the bridge and a middle part of the bridge is missing, you can only assume the worst.
And, I mean, I don't know if it's good or bad that the Mississippi was there. But, I mean, it's scary stuff. And I -- children were on buses. And, I mean, it was terrible.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Also these were the eyewitnesses that really make the story, that really bring it home. They are sharing incredible pictures and I-Reports with us. And we're going to be bring those to you all morning long, including, I believe we have some video that we're going to show you in a few minutes, possibly of the actual collapse as it was taking place. Joe Costello is one of the many people who witnessed the bridge collapse yesterday. He is in Roseville, Minnesota, just a few blocks from the scene. He joins me now live on the phone.
And, Joe, tell us where you were when all of this happened.
JOE COSTELLO, EYEWITNESS: Actually, not in Rose, I'm actually right downtown. And I -- when it happened, I was just beginning a nightly walk across what was called the Stone Arch Bridge, which is a pedestrian-only bridge about a quarter mile due west of the 35W Bridge.
I just started on the bridge, so I didn't have the entire bridge in view, one of the railings was in the way, the center section. But I saw a big plume of smoke more or less erupt from the south end about -- almost like a geyser about 100-200 feet in the air, followed shortly thereafter by the center section, another smaller plume of smoke.
And then it took a few seconds for finally the north end to just kind of buckle and go down. I would say all in all, it took approximate five seconds for the whole bridge to come down. There was a handful of people on the bridge I was on. And we were just shocked.
We -- there are several bridges in that area so we weren't sure exactly which one it was. We were hoping it was not 35W. And in fact, some people were just so confused by it, there were joggers on this bridge, that they just kept on jogging. They didn't stop. They didn't think much of it, actually.
CHETRY: OK. So are we seeing in some of these pictures the stone arch that you are talking about, the pedestrian walkway? It's quite close to where this collapse took place?
COSTELLO: Correct. Yes, not what's on TV now, but there was -- some of the pictures that there are people standing by, like a brown or maroon type railing looking out. It's a wide open view of the river and the bridge.
CHETRY: And so you're talking about 35W. So the other side -- the other pass, the span that you see that it is still up, that is the eastbound of that same exact bridge?
COSTELLO: That -- the other span that it is still being seen as the either Cedar Avenue or 10th Avenue Bridge, it depends on who you talk to, and then just east of there, that has a rail bridge as well. But the entire 35 -- Interstate 35W.
And Minneapolis is much like the Dallas metropolitan Fort Worth area where 35 splits into 35E and W. W goes to Minneapolis, E goes through St. Paul. And so the entire 35W north- and southbound completely came down.
CHETRY: And when you just look at these pictures, I mean, it looks like it buckled into, you know, a V shape -- an upside-down V shape. How far down are we talking? How high above the water is this river -- is this bridge?
COSTELLO: Well, you know, I mean, obviously the measurements that have been on all night are saying 64 feet. And to get a sense of that, immediately after I went off -- in one of those pictures you see a railcar -- a grayish railcar that is completely smashed.
And I was right -- at that point, right next to that railcar, standing on top of a hill looking straight down at several cars that it took me probably 10 seconds to figure out that they were cars that were just completely mangled. And I would be shocked if anybody survived.
And I saw at least three vehicles in that condition.
CHETRY: Yes. And we saw a few from some of these pictures that we are getting. It is hard to tell which -- what would be the more desirable situation, to have it -- to have your car go into the water.
Some people are telling these amazing stories of being able to think quickly and scramble out of their windows. One women who was actually on the bridge when her plunged into the water says she was removed -- she was able to get herself out without a scratch and eventually rescued.
Can you just give us a sense of how that rescue started and how they coordinated, trying to get as many people out of the river as possible?
COSTELLO: From what I saw -- and first of all, after it had collapsed, it was eerily quiet for at least five minutes, probably even more, before we even heard a siren in the distance. So it was very quiet for a long time.
When I got near the scene on the north end, the first fire trucks that arrived had taken a wrong road and had to backtrack. They were the upper part of the hill and had to get closer to the river.
But they -- there was no -- I don't want to say there wasn't a sense of urgency, but even it seemed like the rescue workers were shocked themselves. And from the scene that I saw, there were several people -- there was one couple that was getting out through their sunroof of the sport utility.
There was a couple -- there was one lady laying on the side of the ground. And people weren't rushing around. It was just -- it was slow and deliberate. But it just seemed everybody was kind of in a trance-like state, even the rescue workers.
CHETRY: Wow. That is amazing. We are hearing that there were just passersby who were trying to get into the rivers as well when they saw people to try to pull them out. And there were many who were rescued.
We have 60 people in local hospitals. And again, seven confirmed dead. There are 20 people still missing and feared dead. That's the situation this morning as, at first light, they're going to begin the recovery effort once again.
Joe Costello, eyewitness of what had happened, thank you very much for talking with us this morning.
By the way, we're staying on every angle on top of this breaking story. Coming up, we're going to be speaking with a spokesperson for the Red Cross about what they are doing to try to help.
The need obviously is going to be great as we begin to see the area around there as the sun comes up this morning in Minneapolis, as the rescue/recovery efforts begin anew. And we're going to have much more on what is going on there.
Also later, we're going to talk about why this may have happened, examining the infrastructure of America's bridges. Many like this one built 40 years ago, are they still safe? We're going to talk more about that coming back on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just kind of like crunching down. And I don't know, we didn't know what was going on. My eyes were closed. I opened them. I saw cement blocks in the front of the car. And then all of a sudden we were stopped, and our cars perpendicular to the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: So again, if you're just joining us this morning, this is a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. It is 5:21 Eastern time, that makes it 4:21 in Minnesota, in the Twin Cities this morning. We're covering the latest details coming into us about this bridge collapse.
And in fact, we have actually obtained footage that was taken from security cameras that was recorded by a security camera that was on the north side of the bridge. And we have it to show you.
This video was provided to CNN by someone who did not want to be identified since they were not authorized to distribute this publicly yet. But again, we did get this tape and there it is right now.
You can see just that cloud of dust that comes up as the I-35 West Bridge that spans across the Mississippi River just literally -- it almost looks like when we cover an implosion, a deliberate implosion.
There you see someone running frantically to get out of the way. No shoes on. Many people that were there describe it as chaos, saying they feel as if they were cast in surreal earthquake film. Somebody said it was like something out of a movie.
That bridge, again, there you see it almost just buckles up into an upside-down V shape and you see the plume of smoke coming there. This, again, is video recorded from a security camera that is on the north side of the bridge.
And it was provided to CNN by someone who didn't want to be identified because they were not authorized to give this out yet. I'm sure we will probably see more video like this coming throughout the day.
But these are some of the first pictures you are seeing of the actual structure buckling and then crumbling into the Mississippi River. This river -- this bridge, by the way, was packed with people.
It was the heart of rush hour. Shortly after 6:00 in Minneapolis on a typical day this bridge sees about 100,000, maybe even as many as 200,000 cars and vehicles go across it.
Cars, trucks, as we saw, school buses. And there are unbelievable tales of survival, people who plunged into the water and then were able just from smart thinking and sheer luck to get themselves out of their vehicles.
And the rescue effort, of course, under way as quickly as they could possibly muster, trying to pull as many people out of the water. There were others that did not fare as well. Nine people killed according to The Minneapolis Star Tribune.
And there are still 20 missing. And unfortunately the fears are that they also maybe have not made it. They have said this is a recovery effort this morning because they do not believe that anyone that was still in the river overnight survived.
You know, there is a question this morning hanging over all of this that will probably come within the coming weeks as well. And that is why this happened. What caused that bridge to collapse?
Now on The Star Tribune Web site, we did find a link to a report from 2001. This report was from the University of Minnesota's Engineering Department. The bridge that collapsed today is mentioned in the report. And here is one of the quotes that struck us.
It says: "Concern about fatigue cracking in the deck truss is heightened by lack of redundancy in the main system." When they say "lack of redundancy," a structural redundancy usually some sort of back-up structure to carry the loads.
They say: "Only two planes of the main trusses support the eight lanes of traffic. The truss is determinate and the joints are theoretically pinned. Therefore if one member were severed by a fatigue crack, that plane of the main truss would theoretically collapse."
This is technical language for structural engineers. And we will break it down a little more. But what they seem to be saying in this report that came from the University of Minnesota's Engineering Department is that perhaps the way that the bridge was constructed, they didn't have enough other redundancies -- structural redundancies or supports in place so that if there was a weakness on one side, it would affect the entire structure. Now we don't know if any steps were taken to address those concerns. However Governor Tim Pawlenty said that the bridge passed inspections in both 2005 and 2006. So we will continue to look into that throughout the course of the morning and in the coming days.
The tragedy in Minnesota is bringing another notable bridge and road collapse -- many of them, in fact, back into the spotlight this morning. In fact, just yesterday, right here on AMERICAN MORNING, we spoke to the driver of a FedEx deliver truck, Robert Sylvester, his truck was crushed by support beams for a new overpass that collapsed on a highway north of Sacramento in Oroville, California.
Remarkably, he escaped with just a sprained ankle. There was also a construction worker there that suffered more serious injuries. And engineers were saying they still do not know what triggered that collapse.
Also in California, the pictures that are hard to forget, back in April, a stretch of the Bay Bridge crumbled. This one, though, happening, boy, after, a tanker truck had rolled over and exploded into flames.
Now the sheer heat coming up from the burning oil in that tanker is what ultimately ended up melting the trusses of that bridge and caused it to collapse. Only one driver was hurt in that.
Also, in 2002, a scene from Webbers Falls, Oklahoma. This is south of Tulsa. Fourteen people were killed when a barge hit a bridge over the Arkansas River, a 500-foot section of that bridge collapsed.
An engineering report later determined that the bridge could have withstood the crash had it been built in accordance with the update structural guidelines. And it's important to remember that there had been many changes over the decades, as technology has been able to give people a better idea of what these structures need in order to stay up, even when something like a barge crashes into it.
It's different in this case in Minnesota, because there didn't seem to be any one event, any traumatic event that took place that caused the bridge to just buckle when it did.
Also in Greenwich, Connecticut, three people were killed back in 1983 when a bridge -- this bridge is on Interstate 95, it collapsed there. You see, it almost just looks like a chunk of it fell.
We have John Roberts on the phone right now. He is on his way to the scene right now in Minnesota. He is going to be able to update us.
What is your progress, John, on where you guys are located, your crew?
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, good morning, Kiran. We're just on the Minneapolis side of the I-35 Bridge collapse. I'm standing about 300 or 400 yards away from the actual site of the collapse. And you can see that the rest of the roadway, as it both pancaked and then sitting on its end as it spans the Mississippi River. The police have got the area blocked off for a number of blocks around it.
The 10th Avenue Bridge, which is that arched bridge that you see in those pictures, which parallel the I-35 Bridge, has been set up for emergency workers. And so a lot of lights on that bridge right now illuminating the collapse in the river below.
There will not be any more recovery operations until first light here. There is just -- there is so much debris down there in the water that they didn't want the recovery workers down there because they have actually been going in in wetsuits, not even with masks on some of them, holding their breath, diving down into the cars, trying to find out if there are still any occupants in the vehicle.
There are still some 20 people who are believed to have -- to be missing. They think they have got a number of about 50 cars in the river right now. So when that -- when the first light comes and that will be in about another two hours here in Minneapolis because it's only 4:30 in the morning.
They will resume those efforts. It really is a striking scene, Kiran. You were talking about other bridge collapses. This really reminds me of the 1993 Northridge earthquake in California. I was up in the Antelope Valley where sections of overpasses on Interstate 5 had collapsed.
And of course, that big section of that bridge on the I-10 freeway had collapsed as well. It's very much like that with the exception though that this bridge spanned water. The section that actually spanned the Mississippi River was almost 400 feet long.
So in the cases of the bridge collapses in the Northridge earthquake, rescue workers were right there on the ground, able to get the people who may have been trapped or may have been in some trouble because of those collapses.
I remember there was a motorcycle cop who was on his way to work up in the Antelope Valley and drove off the end of one of those overpasses that had completely come apart. He was killed.
But now you have this enormous stretch of water. So that really hampering the recovery efforts. But at this point, officials say there is no reason to believe that there was anyone else left alive down there.
So very quickly last evening the switch from a rescue to a recovery effort, one that will probably resume in about two hours' time here, Kiran.
CHETRY: You know, and you bring up a good point. You were mentioning the one collapse because of earthquake. Also the 880, the Loma Prieta earthquake back in 1989 that caused that section of the Nimitz Freeway to collapse, that took nearly a decade to rebuild that section of freeway. Environmental concerns as well as design concerns ended taking -- having it take a decade. When you look at the devastation and you see this structure collapse, you just wonder where do they even begin to try to get that area cleared out and to get things back to normal in the Twin Cities?
ROBERTS: As we have seen, though, with that bridge collapse in Oakland, and as well, I mean, just really started with the Northridge earthquake, some of these contractors go in there. They are very adept at demolition and rebuilding a bridge. The problem that you have here though is it is just such an enormous span.
It's just shy of 2,000 feet. And again, it's over water. And obviously all of the piers that were hold up the bridge collapsed as well. So this far more than just replacing some steel or setting up some new concrete beams on the original piers that were there.
Everything here has to be replaced. So this is a project that is going to be months, if not more than a year in the making. You know, everybody is talking here about an article that appeared in the Minnesota Star Tribune back in 2001 where they were talking about whether this bridge should one day be replaced.
And the study had suggested that if there were a crack in one of the main piers holding the bridge deck up, that the whole thing could come down. However, the study concluded there was no reason to believe that it would crack.
Nor were there any cracks in the superstructure as the engineers could ascertain. But obviously something, something huge happened yesterday just after 6:00. People talked about hearing a vibration, a huge vibration, almost a harmonic vibration before the bridge went down.
There was some work being done on the bridge deck. And that would involved a lot of jack-hammering. I've seen that a lot of bridges in Washington, D.C. But it wouldn't seen to be the sort of thing that could set up, you know, what is called that harmonic wave, as we saw the wind do in that Tacoma Narrows Bridge that everybody saw in science class back in the early part of the 19th Century where it just twisted it and blew it apart like it was a piece of taffy.
So nobody knows at this point what it was that may have set up that vibration. But obviously, Kiran, something triggered that one.
CHETRY: Right. And you mentioned that 2001 report, also a 2001 report from the University of Minnesota's own engineering department that mentioned this bridge in particular and the concerns about the lack of a redundancy system where they have other structures supporting the main trusses of the bridge.
Their concern was that there were only two planes of the main truss that ended up supporting eight lanes of traffic. And they went on to say that if, you know, one thing would happen, if the -- if that one part of that main truss collapsed, it would cause the entire thing to because of the system. This was, again, just a University of Minnesota Engineering Department report. But as we said, there was yearly inspections taking place on this bridge, certainly not something that they expected to happen.
John, let's...
ROBERTS: And...
CHETRY: Go ahead.
ROBERTS: And while this bridge was built in 1967, it was built with the idea of year 2000 traffic in mind. So it was designed to last a long time, to handle increasing volumes of traffic, which is what has people so puzzled as to what kind of catastrophic event could bring the whole thing down?
What's really interesting though in all of this, is you look across the country, and I don't have the exact number, but I remember a study some years ago, it's probably going back five or eight years, thousands of bridges across this country are desperately in need of repair or replacement.
It's the aging infrastructure here, all of these things were built in the 1960s when the interstate system was developed, and you know, there just -- they are still sitting there. They are obviously updated. We see bridges in New York City constantly under repair. But a lot of these, you know, according to some people who know a lot about these things -- according to these experts, are just time bombs waiting to happen.
And it appears as though one of those went off last night here in Minneapolis.
CHETRY: It sure does. John Roberts, making his way to the scene right now. Should be there any moment. Thanks, John. We're going to check in with you in just a few minutes.
Meanwhile, we want to turn to our Greg Hunter, he has been able to gather some information on that 2003 report that labeled a number of bridges in the country obsolete. Greg joins us live from the Manhattan site of one of the busiest bridges in the country, the George Washington Bridge -- the GW that many of have crossed without even thinking about it.
What did you find out, Greg, about safety when it comes to bridges around the country?
GREG HUNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, the GW Bridge handles over 100 million cars a year. It is utterly huge. It has got eight lanes on top, six lanes on the bottom. It was opened originally in 1931, and added lanes in 1962. And it is extremely sound. The towers are 600 feet tall. They just finished repainting the towers on this bridge. Very well maintained bridge.
But that is not the case for a lot of bridges across the country, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. They have been warning about America's aging infrastructure, not just bridges but water, electricity, and roadways.
But when it comes to bridges, they said in 2003, they have been warning about this since 2001. In 2003, they said 160,000 bridges were, and here is there words, "structurally deficient." That means that some of the structural components are deteriorating, it doesn't necessarily make them dangerous.
But the officials may want to restrict traffic flows and waits. And then the other thing is "functionally obsolete." That meant -- that means that they were designed for one, you know, purpose, X amount of traffic. And then trucks got bigger and more cars on the road. They are obsolete. They can't handle the traffic flows and the waits.
So they said 160,000 of these bridges, or 27 percent were functionally obsolete or structurally deficient. Now according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, they say for the next 20 years we need to spend almost $10 billion a year to bring these bridges up to par.
And even our own Federal Highway Administration says their goal is by 2008 to have less than 25 percent of the bridges to be structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, which still leaves about one in four bridges with some problems.
Who knows what happened up there in Minnesota. But this is a national problem in terms of infrastructure, especially when it comes to bridges. Back to you, Kiran.
CHETRY: Wow. All right. Greg, we're going to be checking in with you throughout the morning, thanks a lot.
Meantime, hundreds of people watched as this bridge crumbled into the Mississippi River. Coming up next, we're going to hear some of the witness reaction. What was it like to be there, just to feel so helpless, to try to help these people when you see cars just crushed on the side of the road, some of them plunged into the water, as the recovery efforts will begin about an hour and 15 minutes from now, as the rescue workers go out there and try to see at first light what is left after this devastating bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
AMERICAN MORNING is coming right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 5:40 on the East Coast right now. That makes it 4:40 in Minnesota. And you're watching a special edition right now of AMERICAN MORNING. We're covering the latest on this bridge collapse in Minnesota.
And in fact, CNN has obtained exclusive video showing the actual collapse as it happens. This was obtained by someone who wanted to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to distribute this publicly. But it was recorded from a security camera on the north side of the bridge. And again, we will show it. You can see that -- well, here you see the smoke coming up and the debris and the dust rising after the bridge collapse.
But there you see it, just in slow motion, you just see it literally just give way, turning into an upside-down V. And then the dust and debris coming up. A couple of seconds from you're going to see a person running, actually barefoot through the screen and off to the left.
Witnesses describe it as silence for several minutes after this happened. Shock, some of them even described it as feeling as though they were part of a surreal earthquake film. Others describe hearing maybe a little bit of rumbling and then silence. Others describe something louder, hearing a big noise.
And one person who was inside of bus at the time saw rocks hitting the bus. They were able to get out of a emergency door. These were 52 school children on their way back from a field trip. And then ran.
There were some who say their cars literally stopped five feet from the edge when they saw others right in front of them go right into the river. At this point, we have rescue workers and rescue officials telling us they believe there are some 50 vehicles still in the river.
Nine people confirmed dead, at least according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. And 60 other people in hospitals this morning. Other sad news is that 20 are still missing and feared dead. They are already talking about changing this from a rescue to a recovery operation.
They say that the rescue workers are going to be out there again. They had to stop their efforts last night just because of the danger with the sheer amount of debris everywhere. But it looks like the Sun is going to come up 5:59 Central time. So we are looking at about an hour and 15 minutes right now. And that's when they will begin again going out there to assess the damage.
Meanwhile, we have been getting so many reports. Our I-Reports from the scene of people who were there either with their cell phones that had cameras, or their own cameras and were able to record the moment after this tragedy, as it unfolded.
Steve Dworak (ph) was a witness and an I-Reporter. He talked to Anderson Cooper last night. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Another one of our I-Reporters, Steve Dworak, he got to the scene about 15 minutes after the bridge came down. He captured the aftermath on video. He joins us now on the phone with us.
Tell us about what you first saw when you got there. STEVE DWORAK, EYEWITNESS: Yes. I arrived probably about 15 minutes after it happened, and I was on the shore of the Mississippi, and I was probably one of the few guys to come up there really relatively early.
I had saw about five police officers pull an individual out of the water and perform CPR on the individual for about 15 minutes or so. And it didn't look like the person made it, unfortunately. And then about -- while I was sitting there, there was a distressed individual who was swimming in the water while the police tried to get him out of the water.
And he was searching for his daughter and he's screaming, I think she went downstream, check farther down. And he's running around asking people if they saw a little girl between I think around the age of 8 or so with red hair and glasses and stuff. And just looked completely distressed in the whole situation.
COOPER: Steve, how long did you stay on the scene? The pictures we are seeing right now, you took this with what, your cell phone camera?
DWORAK: Yes. I have a cell phone camera that's also a video camera. So I was on the scene for a good two hours. And as the time went by, they had moved -- the police had -- did crowd control. So when I got there it was really early so they weren't doing crowd control at the time because they were trying to help as many people as they could.
So I was there probably about 50 feet from the scene and then they started getting more and more boats. There were dozens of boats looking for people in the water, pulling people from the water and bringing them on shore.
And then as time went by, the police did a crowd control and they moved people farther and farther back until after two hours I was so far back that I just decided to go home to my apartment.
COOPER: And the bridge that we are seeing here, I mean, it looks like it's just jackknifed almost vertical.
DWORAK: It was extremely vertical. And I -- there are pictures also that I had took that the cars -- some of the cars were, you know, halfway up or all the way at the top and it was straight up. I -- it's something -- I was telling my mom, it was something I saw like from a movie. It didn't even, you know, make sense. It was unreal.
COOPER: It is certainly unreal and sadly all too real. Steve Dworak, we appreciate you sending us this I-Report video. One of our I-Reporters. Stick around, Steve. We'll talk to you a little later on.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: You know, and when you describe these scenes, you just can't help but think that witness describes someone running around asking if they've seen his 7- or 8-year-old little girl, there were many families, there were many people, children, 100,000 people crossing that bridge at any given time during the day -- during the course of the day -- a weekday. And this happened to be at the height of rush hour, so there were many there.
Joining me on the phone right now is Kevin Duchschere. He is a reporter with The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Kevin arrived on the scene about 15 minutes after the bridge collapsed.
Kevin, are you with me?
KEVIN DUCHSCHERE, REPORTER, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE: Yes. Hi, Kiran.
CHETRY: Hi. First of all, give me an update. You guys have really been ahead of the reporting here. You have a confirmation of nine people killed. Most are saying seven this morning. Do you know what the differential is?
DUCHSCHERE: No. I'm not familiar with what the source of that report is. But we are saying nine dead, about 60, we believe, injured, 20 missing. But I should caution that we expect all of those numbers to rise in the course of the day.
CHETRY: They had to suspend the rescue efforts. They're doing it at sunrise, which will be 5:59 local time, just about an hour from now. What are they going to do when they get back out there this morning?
DUCHSCHERE: Well, I know that they have called in a number of heavy equipment, cranes and that sort of thing. I think that they are going to be looking for cars in the river. I think that is one of those places -- areas where they were unable to get around to everything last night at dark -- as it became dark. And so they are going to be making an extra effort to see what they can find there.
CHETRY: When we talk about people that were missing loved ones or desperately trying to get reconnected with those that they thought were on the bridge, was that any coordinated effort, trying to make sure that survivors were reunited?
DUCHSCHERE: Well, yes. They have got a command center here at the Holiday Inn very near the bridge site. And they are -- you know, they scrambled really fast last night to put together and organized these teams.
And I think to more or less a degree, they've managed to coordinate a certain number of things. So I understand it is going OK. But I'm certain there are number of people who are still wondering.
CHETRY: You know, everyone that looks at these pictures this morning, first just says, oh my gosh, I've just never seen anything like this in recent memory. And then the second thing they ask is, how did this happen? Do we have any idea? DUCHSCHERE: Well, that is the big question, along with, how many people are missing? And we don't have a good idea yet. Obviously there was structural failure. It appears that -- there are two schools of thought on the bridge.
The governor said -- the governor of Minnesota said last night that the bridge had been inspected in 2005 and 2006 and did not have a structural deficiency. But Dan Browning, in our paper, is reporting today that the -- it's on a list of structurally deficient bridges kept by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
So -- and I'm certain that that is one of those things that we're going to be looking into today.
CHETRY: What is the rush hour like on that bridge?
DUCHSCHERE: Well, it is pretty -- you know, it's about -- we estimate about 140,000 to 200,000 cars go over that bridge each day. It's a main route out of downtown Minneapolis into the northern suburbs.
And even those of us who don't use the bridge every day like myself, I usually -- I'm usually on it once a week at least to get into the St. Paul area. And so it's a bridge that is very familiar and very heavily used here.
CHETRY: So what are they going to be doing today, Kevin, out there at the scene?
DUCHSCHERE: Well, I mean, what they are going to be doing, first of all, is the recovery effort. I think that is sort of the priority. At the same time, they are going to be able to take a closer look at the bridge structure itself.
I know that teams from the NTSB and other federal agencies and state agencies will be on the scene as soon as it gets light out here. And there is going to be a lot work done today. But I know that the first priority is on seeing what can be done about those involved in this thing.
CHETRY: You know, one of the other really most compelling pictures that we saw that really just had people scared for the safety of these kids -- there was about, what, 52 or 60...
DUCHSCHERE: Yes.
CHETRY: ... children on a school bus. They were coming back from some sort of day camp or some sort of trip. What happened there?
DUCHSCHERE: Well, they were -- as I understand it, they were on their way back from a wave pool up in Coon Rapids. And they were on their way back into Minneapolis and the bus happened to be in the wrong place and got caught in this thing.
And fortunately our understanding is that most of the kids were OK and maybe 10 of them -- 10 of the 60 or so are being hospitalized. But people who were caught on the bridge and who were able to, went to the bus and helped the kids -- helped the kids get off the bridge and down to safety.
So I understand it was quite a pretty nifty effort that was made.
CHETRY: Yes. And the other part, it's just unbelievable that rescuers were able to get -- you can see sort of that V-shaped area where -- that hollow where the bridge buckled. There were many cars that were just sort of piled up there. How were they able to get into that? It just looks like such a dangerous, precarious situation.
DUCHSCHERE: Well, a lot of the motorists who were caught in it, I talked to at least one man who lost control of his car, rear-ended another car which was not unusual. He got out. He actually crossed into the -- he was in the northbound lane. He crossed into the southbound and he crawled up one of the inclines in order to get to an area where he thought he could lower himself.
And I just -- it sounds to me like that sort of thing happened repeatedly. You know, people just made a way or found their way out, I guess.
CHETRY: Yes. Just took it upon themselves to try to rescue themselves. Another woman describes just thinking -- you know, she said it was almost like on autopilot, just put her window, -- her automatic window down and just was -- managed to swim out without a scratch. That's unbelievable when you see the way that this looked, that people survived that without a single scratch.
And by the way, we were able to get this video, Kevin, I don't know if you can see it or not. But it looks like it has been taken by a security camera on the north side of the bridge, showing the actual collapse.
DUCHSCHERE: I have not seen that, no. And I can't -- I don't have access to a monitor now.
CHETRY: OK. It...
DUCHSCHERE: But I'm sure it's pretty good.
CHETRY: It's just unbelievable to see how not only it just seemed to happen so fast, you just see it go down and then you see a cloud of dust. This is exclusive video that CNN obtained that an anonymous person did not want to be identified. They were not authorized to release it yet.
But again, it just shows how quickly this happened, how unimaginable if you were on that bridge, and how fast, just in the blink of an eye, the road literally disappeared from underneath you.
Kevin Duchschere, with The Minneapolis Star Tribune, thank you for giving us some more insight. We're going to continue to follow the latest developments. As we said, it is about an hour away right now from first light in Minneapolis where the rescue workers will head back to the scene today and see what's left after that bridge collapse.
We're going to continue to follow the latest here on AMERICAN MORNING. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING, covering the breaking news out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the bridge collapse, the I-35 West, interstate bridge literally collapsing into the Mississippi River. Our Rob Marciano has been tracking what the weather is going to be like for the Twin Cities today.
The rescue effort, Rob, getting under way just under an hour from now, sunrise, 5:59 Central time there. What are they looking at today as they resume these operations?
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Kiran, weather conditions improving today. That's part of the good news of this story at least. Temperatures are going to be more comfortable. Levels of humidity are dropping.
These are the current numbers around the western Great Lakes and the upper Midwest. Seventy-two right now in Minneapolis. But Fargo at 57 degrees and dew points are beginning to drop, meaning dryer air is moving in.
I want to show you something that we pulled from last night's -- or yesterday's data. This is radar data from last night. And it's also coupled with wind data, not that this caused the bridge collapse, but there were certainly some interesting weather that was coming though.
Here's the clock, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00. And there was a little squall line that came through around 7:00. But before that, the winds actually picked up. A lot of times when a thunderstorm -- a line of thunderstorms comes through, a squall line comes through, at advance of that, you will get downdrafts and the winds will actually pick up. You can see the winds pick up 15, almost 20 miles an hour out of the southwest.
Now winds are out of the northwest and we are starting to see temperatures drop because of that. Yesterday's high temperatures were well into the 90s. Now temperatures are expected to be into the 80s. Average temperature for this time of year, lower 80s.
So we are going to still be above average. Here is about where the front is, right through there. So we are through. And the five- day forecast for Minneapolis does look to be a little bit better, 84, 86, 84, 86, and then back up to 90.
So a couple of degrees above average, but certainly cooler and more comfortable for those rescue efforts during the day today -- Kiran.
CHETRY: Rob Marciano for us, tracking that weather in Minneapolis, thank you. MARCIANO: You bet.
CHETRY: All right. So if you are just joining us, let's bring you up to date right now on the situation in Minneapolis, the scene of this bridge collapse that took place. It was really just an ordinary rush hour yesterday. About 6:00 p.m. local time.
And this is actually video that CNN has exclusively obtained of the actual collapse of that bridge. Right now there are nine people confirmed dead according to The Minneapolis Star Tribune, 60 people in local hospitals and 20 others still missing.
And authorities as well as the governor and the mayor of Minneapolis we should all expect unfortunately that death toll to rise. It was really a scene of chaos as these cars literally plummeted into the water, crashed along the banks, rescuers poured in the area.
There is, as you can see, bystanders, onlookers gathering along one of the footbridges there to take and capture some of these pictures. The governor of Minnesota called it a "catastrophe of historic proportions" for Minnesota.
There were some witnesses who described hearing a creaking, making all sorts of noises, and then the bridge just started to fall apart. There were others who describe an eerie silence and then just feeling the ground give way.
There were others who, as they recount being rescued, saying that their car was either, you know, perpendicular to the road and that rescuers came to pull them out and saying things like, you have got -- they were afraid the bridge was going to go, you have got to get out now.
And that includes a school bus that was packed with 60 children returning from a swimming trip. They all managed to get out as well. But it was a terrifying sight, as you see some of the cars literally just strewn along the ground and hanging precariously by the edge of where that roadway gave way.
Right now we are going to leave our international viewers. We thank you for being with us for this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. But right now, the next hour of AMERICAN MORNING starts right now.
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