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American Morning
Warning Signs; Cyber-Attack Fears; Minding Your Business; The Blame Game; Clinton vs. Obama; Better Rebuilding
Aired August 03, 2007 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: New questions. Fresh outrage. Were obvious signs of trouble overlooked before the tragic collapse in Minneapolis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trying to make sure we get the answers to this question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The complicated, new search for the missing. And a little girl's frantic cal home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Momma. Momma, the bridge broke while we were crossing it. Everybody is scared and crying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The unforgettable images. Lives lost. Those saved. And meet the heroes disaster revealed, on this AMERICAN MORNING.
And good morning to you. And thanks again for joining us. From Minneapolis, Minnesota, I'm John Roberts. It's Friday, August 3rd as we bring you another special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good to see you this morning, John. I'm Kiran Chetry here in New York.
And then, can you imagine being a parent and getting that phone call that that little girl made from that broken bridge? We're going to have more on that in a couple of minutes. But it really will be the beginning of another difficult day in the twin cities. Here's what we know this morning to update you.
The search will begin yet again at daylight for eight people now believed missing. That number is down from a high of 20 to 30. Yesterday they believed there were 20 to 30 people still missing. Now it's been downgraded to eight people. Also the names of four people confirmed dead coming to light. The newspaper in St. Paul describing them as a likable salesman, a mom and businesswoman and ace pitcher that was wed to his childhood sweetheart and a woman realizing a dream. Seventy-nine people were hurt and five of those remain in critical condition this morning. Also the first lady will be visiting Minneapolis today and the president, John, is due to pay a visit to the twin cities tomorrow.
ROBERTS: And a little bit of good news came to us yesterday from Sheriff Rich Stanek who said that the number of people believed to be missing, rather than being in the neighborhood of 20 to 30, now down to around eight. They do believe that the death toll is going to go up, but perhaps not by as much as they did yesterday.
Let me set the scene for you here. We have changed our vantage point here in downtown Minneapolis. We're now on a rooftop overlooking the Mississippi River and the bridge behind me. You'll get a better look at it as the sun begins to come up.
But what you can sort of see behind me there is one of the main areas of collapse. I mean the whole bridge collapsed. But this is where it really came down precipitously. It's the Mississippi River right underneath there.
You see the bridge deck buckled in at almost a 90 degree angle and the trusses and the rest of that bridge deck just tipped over at such a precarious angle. That's where a lot of the death took place because those vehicles just dropped down 65 feet, nothing to stop them from slamming into the valley floor there.
And as we are waking up this morning, we're hearing about new information that the Minnesota Department of Transportation had some idea of problems with this bridge, problems that may have been serious enough to address. There were some structural cracks that were found in some of the steel, according to a report that "The Minneapolis Star Tribune" that the Department of Transportation actually thought about patching up with steel plates. They decided not to do that, though.
One reason given was that drilling thousands of holes in the bridge structure to put these plates on might actually weaken it more. There is also some speculation that it might have been a financial problem, a budgetary problem. They didn't have the money to do it. We'll be talking with the governor of Minnesota about that, the head of the NTSB a little bit later on today.
And, of course, Minnesota has now been ordered to inspect all of the bridges across the state. And, as well, the U.S. Department of Transportation has issued an alert that all states should do the same thing, too, because there are thousands and thousands of bridges that have found to be structurally deficient in some way and stepped up inspections is something that the government is suggesting that these states do to make sure that something like this is not repeated anywhere across the country.
About 8:30 this morning, the recovery is going to resume. They ran into some problems yesterday. Areas of the bridge structure are still fairly unstable, presenting a risk to the divers.
Yesterday they were out there with some side scan sonar, GPS mapping. They discovered four hits, as they called them, in the water. One was a vehicle that went down with the bridge. There was nobody inside it.
They found some of the scaffolding from the bridge repairs that were being done. Some concrete debris, rebar. And they also found a pickup truck that they said had been there for some time. They don't really know how it got there. They found this vehicle in the middle of the river. We'll be hearing more this morning when Sheriff Rich Stanek has another press conference, 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time.
And also this morning, we're going to introduce you to one of the rescuers. You probably saw some pictures of this woman. She's a captain with the Minneapolis Fire Department. She was actually off duty when she heard about the bridge going down. She just came back into work. She had actually been out water skiing, so she had her bathing suit on underneath her uniform there. And we saw all these pictures of her going through these vehicles, making sure that there was no one trapped inside. Shanna Hanson (ph) is her name. And we'll be meeting her a little bit later on this morning.
We have reporters covering every angle of this story across the country. Chris Lawrence is in Minneapolis. Sean Callebs is just outside New Orleans. How quickly can a destroyed bridge be rebuilt? And Greg Hunter is in Connecticut with the expensive lessons that were learned in a similar disaster on a highway overpass.
Let's start this morning with Chris Lawrence who's with me here in Minneapolis.
Good morning, Chris.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
You know, it's such a simple question, why did the bridge fall down? But investigators know that to get an answer for that, it's going to be a very long and complicated process, shifting through different theories as to what could have happened at the bridge, as well as examining decisions that were made five, 10, even 15 years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE, (voice over): It was Minnesota's busiest bridge. But the bearings that helped support it were showing significant corrosion as far back as 17 years ago. Inspectors later discovered cracks near the joints. Minnesota officials stepped up inspections, but declined to add steeler plates to reinforce the bridge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dr. Dexter's (ph) research at the time was that fatigue cracking was not expected in the deck truss. That we could expect continued years of service from that structure.
LAWRENCE: Federal inspectors designated the bridge as structurally deficient. But even the secretary of transportation says that doesn't mean the bridge is unsafe.
MARY PETERS, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: The bridge should be repaired, should perhaps be considered for replacement at some point in the future. It was by no means an indication that this bridge was not safe. Had that been the case, MDOT, Governor Pawlenty, would have shut this bridge down immediately.
LAWRENCE: It collapsed Wednesday and killed several commuters, including a wife and mother whose daughter had hoped her mom was simply missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My mom is one big fighter. I know she can get through this. She's just somewhere where we can't see her right now. And she's just waiting.
LAWRENCE: On Friday, divers will try to identify more victims, after swirling, murky water forced them out on Thursday. They were able to inspect license plate numbers of some of the submerged cars.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know of several people who are pinned or trapped. And were, at the time when we left them, deceased.
LAWRENCE: Rescue workers are using sonar to direct the divers and have detected cars east and west of the bridge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's suspicion that there are actually some vehicles under that concrete pile that you see there emerging from the top of the river there.
LAWRENCE: Getting underneath it means moving very large, heavy pieces of debris and it could take days.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE: You know, on a normal day, some 140,000 cars and trucks would go over that bridge every day. It was very heavily traveled. And one of the theories that they're going to be looking at right now is this theory of metal fatigue. The idea that heavy traffic over the years wore down key parts of the bridge and that may have caused or had something to do with the collapse.
ROBERTS: Not only that, but you're dealing with a fairly extreme climate up here as well. It can be 20 below, 30 below in the wintertime and then 90 degrees as it was yesterday in the summertime. So a lot of stress on the metal, as well. And growing outrage as we've seen here, particularly with an article in the local newspaper, saying that if they had to put a sign on that bridge that said, hey, it only scored 50, would people have wanted to go across it?
LAWRENCE: Exactly. And you also have to think about, too, that a lot of the pressure that was coming on the bridge was coming during rush hour. So you would put the pressure on during rush hour, then that pressure would leave when the cars left the bridge.
ROBERTS: Chris Lawrence, thanks for that. We'll check back in with you a little bit later on this morning.
The weather was good yesterday here in Minneapolis for recovery efforts, good for the rescue workers, but dangerous heat is coming to the Midwest. Rob Marciano is in the Weather Center down there in Atlanta.
How bad is it going to be, Rob?
(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: Well, President Bush will be heading to Minneapolis tomorrow. Today, though, his focus is homeland security. He's signing the recommendations from the 9/11 Commission into law and also meeting with his top homeland security advisers. Now that bill calls for increased port security, as well as some changes to the way that federal money goes to fight terrorism. How that's disbursed around the country.
Meantime, some of the money might be used to help fight a cyber threat that some say could do more damage to the U.S. economy than the Great Depression. Our homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve is in Washington with more on the president and this troubling, new report.
Hi, Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kiran.
This legislation, soon to be law, will require that all cargo be screened within three years. That's air cargo. All maritime cargo has to be scanned for radiation within five years. And it will dole out federal grant money with more consideration for risk. The Democrats like to say that the legislation implements the key recommendation of the 9/11 Commissions, but it ignores one of them, that Congress reorganized itself to more effectively oversee homeland security.
Kiran.
CHETRY: And also, what else might the president learn today when he meets with the homeland security team?
MESERVE: Well, he's going to be talking about FISA. That's the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. As you know, the administration has been pushing very heavily for some modifications to that law. We had the president talk about it in his radio address. We had Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence, go up to The Hill this week and talked about the House and Senate and negotiations have been very intense. If an agreement hasn't been reached this morning, we could expect the president to talk a little bit about that.
CHETRY: Also back to the cyber report. Some concerns about how much money it's going to be costing.
MESERVE: Yes, get a load of this, $700 billion. That's how much it would cost if a cyber attack knocked out a third of the nation's electricity for three months. That would be a bigger economic hit than the Great Depression. And a blackout that size and duration would also cause tens of thousands of deaths because of the loss of heating, cooling and critical services and commodities. Those are the calculations of a non-profit research group called the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit. The group's director, Scott Borg, says bad guys could destroy vast swathes of infrastructure by hijacking computer systems. And although the electric industry has taken more protective measures than most, this research group is warping that the increasing sophistication of financial crimes are an alarming indicator of the growing cyber capabilities of our enemies.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Wow, a troubling report for sure.
Jeanne, thank you.
MESERVE: You bet.
CHETRY: It's 11 minutes past the hour now. Ali Velshi is here "Minding Your Business."
And the mortgage company that was at the heart of that sell-off on Wall Street in some trouble today.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, American Home Mortgage, which earlier this week couldn't pay back some of its loans, had other loans called in and triggered a sell-off on the New York Stock Exchange, now says it's shutting down. No surprise that this company was in a lot of trouble and it has happened to other mortgage companies.
The issue here is that American Home Mortgage was not a lender primarily to people with poor credit. That seems to be behind this mortgage crisis that we're talking about. American Home lenders -- borrowers actually had pretty good credit. The distinguishing thing about this company is that their clients had adjustable rate mortgages. So people had budgeted for those mortgages, the rates changed, they became more expensive and they weren't able to pay.
The up shot of all of this for everybody else is that it's going to become harder for lenders to lend money to people with better than normal credit. It's just going to tighten up the market. Expenses could become higher for mortgages. And, once again, other mortgage companies now might be at risk as well. So this continues. A big, big company. Seven thousand workers going to be laid off and it's going to be a little harder to get a loan as a result.
CHETRY: Wow. All right, Ali Velshi, thanks. We'll check in with you a little bit later.
Meanwhile, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, from tragedy to flash point. Is someone to blame for the tragedy in Minneapolis? Well, it certainly didn't take long for them to start finger pointing on Capitol Hill. We're going to talk more about that when AMERICAN MORNING comes right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.
The finger pointing is already underway in Washington, just less than 24 hours after the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. This is live aerials coming to us this morning from Minneapolis where you can see the bridge and the debris still in the area, as well as the black water this morning. They are going to be heading back out there to continue the recovery efforts in just a couple of hours.
But meantime, in the Senate, Senate Leader Harry Reid saying that the bridge disaster was a wake-up call for infrastructure across the country. And other Democrats seeming to blame Republicans and the Bush administration for not passing transportation programs they say are essential. John Harris is editor in chief of politico.com. He joins me from Washington this morning.
Thanks for being with us.
Some of the comments from Patty Murray, a Democratic out of Washington, talking about the lack of investment in the infrastructure and talking about how this is what the Bush administration is threatening to veto. So it would seems that within 24 hours of this tragedy, the finger pointing already happening in Washington.
JOHN HARRIS, EDITOR IN CHIEF, POLITICO.COM: Well, there's no question, it just reflects the context of the times with President Bush very unpopular and a lot of anger on the Democratic side on a whole host of issues. Obviously this appears in the context of just two years ago great criticism of the response in Katrina. So I wasn't really surprised that it became so political and so partisan so quickly.
CHETRY: At the same time, though, the Democrats are now the majority in Congress. So what about culpability on the part of the majority party?
HARRIS: Well, you know, I think what we're going to see in the wake of this is a lot of expenditures the congressmen want for all variety of reasons will be put in a public safety context. A couple of years ago everybody was attacking these so-called ear mark, special funding projects. A lot of times those are for bridges. I think you're going to see anybody who wants something passed say, look, this is necessary for public safety. We want to avoid another Minneapolis.
CHETRY: Yes, exactly. This is usually how we see changes get made, unfortunately. In the wake of a tragedy, then we start taking a closer look at some of the things that have not been worked on.
Let's shift focus and talking a little bit about the continuing war of words between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The latest was seemingly Hillary's camp pounced on some things that Obama said when it came to whether or not he would use nuclear weapons. He seemed to say he wouldn't in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She used that opportunity to say, once again, look, see how inexperienced he is? You should never say nuclear weapons are off the table.
HARRIS: Right. By coincidence, I was with a couple members, senior members of Hillary Clinton's campaign, when that first wire dispatch came out. And at the time it seemed to be saying something much broader, that Obama had taken nuclear weapons off the table in any context, that he would never use them in any circumstances. They were saying, look, this will make him unelectable.
Now when we actually saw the full transcript of what he said, it was a little more precise. He said he wouldn't use nuclear weapons to go after Osama bin Laden in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Nobody's really taking about using nuclear weapons in that context. Still, it was an example of him sort of talking about national security on the fly and being a little imprecise with his words. That's generally not what the most successful candidates do.
CHETRY: And it also comes just a day after the big flap over some of the other comments he made about possibly invading and using troops in Pakistan if Pervez Musharraf did not do enough to capture bin Laden. And Hillary Clinton seemed to be able to capitalize on those comments as well.
HARRIS: They're going to take everything he says and say, look, that it's naive or uninformed and highlights the gap in what they say is the gap in experience. You know, Obama's pretty effective at counter punching as well and saying, look, Hillary Clinton stands for more of the same. You know, if you look at what she's saying, it's not that much different than what President Bush advocates. So it's a question of experience versus, you know, a new approach.
CHETRY: I got you. It seems to be working in her favor for now. The latest "Wall Street Journal" NBC News poll has her 43 percent to Barack Obama, 22 percent, when asked who would you vote for. A lot of time for that to change, though.
John Harris with the politico.com. Thanks for being with us.
HARRIS: Thank you.
CHETRY: John.
ROBERTS: First sliver of dawn beginning to appear over eastern Minneapolis. It will be illuminating the scene of destruction behind us. We're going to give you a closer look at what it looks like this morning.
It's going to be a while before we know what brought this bridge down. Even longer before it's rebuilt. Some people say maybe as much as two years. But what can we learn about reconstruction from Louisiana? Sean Callebs takes a closer look at what bigger and better might mean.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: A live shot of the bridge this morning from our Minneapolis affiliate KARE. The recovery efforts is supposed to get back underway again about 8:30 this morning. You're seeing pictures from quite a great distance the past 24 hours because the fire department has asked that the air space above this bridge be restricted so that it does not encumber their recovery affect at all. I think there's also probably an issues of sensitivity here because there's still a chance that they're going to be pulling more bodies out of the Mississippi River in the next 24 to 48 hours.
Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING live from Minneapolis. This city is facing a long road back from this tragedy. To even begin to rebuild this key bridge in the heart of this Midwest city. In another state, they are still rebuilding bridges that were brought down by Hurricane Katrina two years earlier. Sean Callebs has got that side of the story from Slidell, Louisiana, this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Hurricane Katrina proved too much for Interstate 10's twin span bridge in Louisiana. The massive 30-foot storm surge lifted the bridge right off its pilings in some areas and misaligned it in others, cutting off a vital route between the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain and New Orleans. Now officials are building what they hope is a bigger, better hurricane resistant bridge.
MARK LAMBERT, LA DEPT OF TRANSPORTATION: The bridge is going to be higher. It's going to be about 30 feet off the water, as opposed to the old bridge, which was about eight to 10 feet. Each span will be wider. It will carrying three lanes instead of two lanes.
CALLEBS: By building the bridge higher, officials say they will avoid treacherous storm surges like the one during Katrina. And the new bridge will be solid. Engineers say workers are using a higher performance, high strength concrete that will resist saltwater corrosion and withstand wind and water loads.
JOHN HORN, ENGINEER: Significant reinforcing steel between all portions of the bridge, which is unusual for this type of construction. They've never been designed for uplift forces in the past and this one is specifically designed for uplift forces.
CALLEBS: All this technology comes at a price. $803 million. The largest public works project in Louisiana history.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS: Live now in Slidell. You're looking at pilings of what will be the new bridge on Interstate 10 leading east out of New Orleans. That is slated to be finished in 2012. But, John, the real concern right now. Want to give you some sobering numbers. The repairs on this bridge are so tenuous that state engineers tell us they have to inspect them every single day. And they say they frequently find problems. And when that happens, they have to shut down lanes of the interstate going in and out of the city. They say if they are going to make an err, they're going to make the err on the side of caution.
John.
ROBERTS: You would think, though, Sean, if they're rebuilding this bridge, that it would be up to standard. You wouldn't need to close it down all the time because things were not up to snuff.
Sean Callebs for us in Slidell, ,Louisiana this morning.
Sean, thanks very much.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Well here's a look at some of the stories coming up that you can't miss.
Unbelievable tales of survival are coming from that Minneapolis bridge collapse, as you know, John. Well, imagine being in a wheelchair and having to be caught in that mess and then trying to escape. Gary Tuchman talked to one man who managed to do just that. How did he survive. We're going to hear his story coming up.
John.
ROBERTS: You know, and in the early hours after this bridge collapse, we saw some of the rescuers in action. And there's one particular person that we got a real up close and personal look at. Her name is Shanna Hanson (ph). She is a captain with the Minneapolis Fire Department.
She was actually off. She had been out water skiing when she heard about the bridge collapse. She came back. She had her bathing suit on underneath her uniform.
The first thing she did was she tided a rope to herself, dove in that water and started going through those cars to make sure that there were nobody trapped inside. Also, then it became a recovery effort. She started looking for bodies. You'll meet her. She's really a terrific person. I think you'll enjoy her.
Those stories when AMERICAN MORNING returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: There is a shot this morning over John Roberts' shoulder as he's on location this morning in Minneapolis Just a couple of days after that tragedy that took place. And today the recovery efforts will be begin anew at first light.
Welcome back once again. It's Friday, August 3rd. I'm Kiran Chetry in New York.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: And I'm John Roberts in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Let's update you on the situation here. Still, the death toll stands at four right now. A little bit of good news came to us from Sheriff Rich Stanek later yesterday afternoon when he said that the number of people believed to be missing is maybe only eight people that are still missing. While it's likely that the death toll will increase from this bridge collapse, it may not increase to the degree that it was believed it would yesterday.
But there's a new sense of outrage here in Minneapolis this morning. A story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which is a fine newspaper here in the Twin Cities, has said that the Minnesota Department of Transportation was aware of structural problems with this bridge, cracking in the steel that may have required a fix. There was a suggestion to bolt metal plates over the areas where there were stress fractures that were appearing. That idea was shelved at least for the time being.
Did those stress fractures somehow contribute to the bridge collapse? Were they, indeed, responsible? We'll be putting that question to some people this morning, including the governor of Minnesota and as well, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, who are here investigating this bridge collapse.
The recovery expected to resume this morning about 8:30. There was some problems associate with that yesterday. Debris on the up riverside of the bridge collapsed is very unstable, very dangerous for divers to be work in. They lowered the level of the Mississippi River by a couple of feet yesterday, giving them greater access to the vehicles that are submerged there but causes a problem that it increases the speed of the current and creates dangerous eddies. They're trying to figure out how to get around those new problems so they can get into the vehicles and complete their sweep of the area.
Bridge inspections have been ordered across the state of Minnesota and as well, the Department of Transportation on the federal level has urged all states to inspect their bridges just for fear that something like this could be waiting to happen somewhere else across the country -- Kiran?
CHETRY: And there is a stating of this in the Star Tribune earlier today talking about how difficult it is to grasp because when you read about some of the assessments of this bridge, that this was, perhaps, avoidable. And that's what makes it so difficult.
Some of the best pictures and video that we've been able to show of the collapse came from the viewers -- from you. Hundreds of I- reporters sent in their pictures. We got nearly 500 submissions here to CNN.
A couple of the best ones -- a video shot by Brian Koop. It shows rescue workers making their way to the scene in the first minutes after that tragedy took place. There you see the helicopters, some of the rescue, and now we're on a different shot.
Also a video shot by Tina Quick on her digital camera. She said she thought something was blowing up and she took those pictures not far from where the tragedy took place.
Also this morning, we're reliving the horror of what happened through one terrified 10-year-old little girl. Her name? Kaleigh Swift. She was one of the dozens of kids that were on their way home from a field trip when the bus nearly plunged off the buckling bridge, only being stopped by a guardrail and tipped precariously. She called her mom and the family is now letting us hear that panicked call.
(BEGIN AUDIO FEED) KALEIGH SWIFT, BRIDGE COLLAPSE SURVIVOR: Momma, the bridge broke when we were crossing it. And everybody -- everybody's scared and crying. Are you there, momma? Momma, are you there?
(END AUDIO FEED)
Well, there you heard it. Jeremy Hernandez was a counselor on Kaleigh's bus. He wasted no time springing into action. Let's listen to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEREMY HERNANDEZ, CAMP COUNSELOR: I looked over at the river and my heart started beating fast. I jumped over the seats and opened the back of the door, kicked the coolers out and I turned around and was trying to throw kids off the bus. All the kids were lining up and I could feel the bus shaking and telling them, you have to get off the bridge and I'm handing kids over to guys.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, some quick thinking and it saved the lives of many, most likely. There were 14 people on the bus that were hurt. Everyone on that bus, though, survived.
John, as he describes it, we talked to a few of those passers by yesterday. They were doing all that they could to get those kids to safety. These are just strangers who happened to see, this is a school bus, and did what they could to help.
ROBERTS: I remember talking to Gary Babado (ph) yesterday. He had plunged about 35 feet nose-down to the ravine. Back was hurting. He was dodging cars that were falling on top of that area. He got out and the first thing he could think about was getting kids out of that bus.
Amazing stories of heroism that came out of that bridge collapse on Wednesday night.
This morning, we're getting a high-tech look at how the bridge fell. A newly released computer animation, take a look at it here, shows the span over the Mississippi River. That's that 394-foot section likely fell first plunging into the water below and within minutes of that, other sections crumbled, falling into the banks of the river.
As Chad Myers was saying yesterday, it as the lack of redundancy that was probably responsible for the other sections of the bridges falling. More modern bridges, if one section were to fall, the other sections would likely stay intact.
The actual collapse played out in front of nearby security camera. This is video that you saw first and exclusively here on "AMERICAN MORNING" yesterday. Investigators plan to take a very close look at this video in hopes of pinpointing what went so tragically wrong. They also have lots of video that have been sent that other people took. A lot of it you're seeing, as Kiran was saying on you I- reports. They'll be collecting that video to see if it gives them more clues as to how this bridge came catastrophically apart.
Bridge inspections should start immediately, nationwide. That word coming from the Federal Highway Administration in a letter to all state transportation departments. They're already undertaking that task here in Minnesota. The governor ordering that yesterday just to make sure that there's not another bridge out there waiting to collapse.
More than a quarter of the bridges across this country have been rated structural deficient or functionally obsolete.
Twenty-four years ago the crash of a highway bridge in Connecticut sparked big changes on how that state maintains its bridges and roads.
Our Greg Hunter is live in Cos Cob, Connecticut for us this morning.
Good morning to you, Greg.
GREG HUNTER, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John, good morning. Behind me, the Mianus River Bridge. Behind me, that 100 foot section collapsed, without washing, 24 years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTER (voice-over): Highway bridge collapses in the dead of night. Cars plunge into the river below, killing three people and seriously injuring three more. It's the Mississippi River Bridge. The year? 1983.
One of the pins holding the bridge up had been weakened by rust.
RICHARD BIEDER, MIANUS RIVER BRIDGE VICTIMS ATTORNEY: One of those pins wedged itself out. Once you lose one of the pins, it's going to start dropping.
HUNTER: Attorney Rob Bieder represented the victims I the bridge collapse. They settled for millions. He said that they could have saved lives and money if they had just properly inspected and maintained its bridges.
BIEDER: Spend the money because it's going to cost you more if you don't spend the money and the bridge collapses.
HUNTER: It took nearly 6 months and $20 million in repairs to reopen the bridge crossing. Engineers redesigned the bridge, this time, doing away with the pins.
(on camera): It was this section of I-95 that fell into the water that changed the inspection process in Connecticut for the better.
(voice-over): At the time, Connecticut had only 12 engineers. Now they employ dozens.
For Connecticut, some problems still remain. The American Society of Civil Engineers reports that 33 percent of its bridges need repair or replacement, slightly above the national average.
ANDY COATES, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS: It's a question of catching up. The longer we wait, the bigger the price tag will be.
HUNTER: Does that mean people should be afraid to cross America's bridges?
COATES: I think when we'll find out when the investigations were done that this was a unique combination of circumstances, that, again, we're going to want to learn from and apply in the future, but our bridge system is basically safe.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTER: The American Society of Civil Engineers says we'll have to spend in the neighborhood of $250 billion replacing and repairing bridges and that's just bridges. The American Society of Civil Engineers says, hey, our infrastructure needs a lot of repair, aviation, bridges, roads, power grids, water supply, sewage. You take a look at the amount of money we have to spend. They say it's in the neighborhood of 1.3 to $1.6 trillion to upgrade our infrastructure in this country. Back to you, John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Yeah. And every year they wait, it gets more expensive, Greg. A couple of years a there was an estimate of about $200 million to replace this bridge. I'm sure that when they replace it now, it's going to cost them far more than that.
Greg Hunter for us this morning in Cos Cob, Connecticut. Greg, thanks very much -- Kiran?
CHETRY: Thanks, John.
Still to come this morning, one of the heroes revealed. The images of Shanna Hanson rushing into the river to help victims. We're going to meet her coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING."
First, we're going to show you this reporter from I-reporter Mike Maratatto, the sun setting over the Mississippi River and the fallen bridge. Stay with us
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to our special edition of "AMERICAN MORNING." In the face of overwhelming sadness, you often meet incredible heroes, people like Shanna Hanson, a fire department captain who rushed into the river minutes after the bridge collapsed. She's an incredible woman. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS (on camera): How were you struck by what you saw when you arrived there?
SHANNA HANSON, CAPTAIN, MINNEAPOLIS FIRE DEPARTMENT: It was very -- wow. That's a tough question. You don't expect to see it in your city. That's something that happens somewhere else.
ROBERTS: It's one of those things you almost can't get your brain around, to see this entire span of bridge collapse into the valley like that.
HANSON: And that's where the structural collapse train is we're doing in you don't want to just focus on the task at hand, on the one person or how many tasks you have. We have to look at how many people we have down there, how many initial rescuers are gone in there you now if the bridge comes down more, are those people going to be additional casualties?
ROBERTS: You went in with your uniform?
HANSON: Yes.
ROBERTS: Didn't even have a mask on. You tied a rope to yourself?
HANSON: That's what firefighters are trained to do. It's kind of -- that world is our office and being in that world -- it's what you're trained to do so you don't really think about it at the time.
ROBERTS: What was it like doing what you were doing? I mean, you were looking for people who were either trapped in the vehicles and struggling for life or people who had already drown.
HANSON: You're really trying to be thorough. Mine wasn't the first search of those vehicles, so you're trying to be thorough and check into all the spaces so there's no possibility that somebody is in a space that didn't get checked.
When people are going through it the first time, they're trying to get through it fast, try and find as many vehicles as they can as fast as they can. In the secondary search, you're trying to find if there's anything you missed. We had some people ejected from the vehicle so we were checking around, underneath the vehicle.
Because the ground was so uneven, because of the slabs and debris under there, the water depth kept changing so that would change things up a little bit.
ROBERTS: What was the environment like when you were down there? How far could you see without a mask?
HANSON: The visibility was bad. It's Mississippi and it's August and visibility was under a foot, for sure. The water was fairly warm. The environment, that was where it gets dicey because you have the jagged metal and broken glass and you can't see what's around you. You don't know what else you'll bump into while you're out there.
ROBERTS: In your searches of the vehicles, did you find any victims?
HANSON: I did not.
ROBERTS: What's your sense of everything that's happened? What's it doing to the city and what are you seeing out there?
HANSON: Part of the tragedy for the people that were on the bridge and didn't make it through that because that is still, I think, everyone's main focus here.
But this is a huge impact. It was not only the road, it was the railroad. The river is commerce for the city.
The only thing that I can say out of all of the bad things that happened is the amazing way that everyone worked together. Our police force here is phenomenal. They always work so well with us. There were no problems on the scene, no jurisdictional anything. Everyone came together and worked well.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: You know, they train for such things, but Shanna told me, as much as they have trained in the wake of 9/11 for disasters like this, it was a real challenge to everybody. You could see by the amount of debris in the water there how dangerous it is for the divers going into the murky waters of the Mississippi to try and clear these cars and find the remaining victims -- Kiran?
CHETRY: Shows the bravery. Everyone else is just trying to get the heck out. And these are the people who go in to help. They are to be commended. Wow, what an incredible lady. Great that you got to talk to her, John.
Meantime, we're going to talk with Rob Marciano giving us a look at what we can expect today weather wise, especially for that area as the search continues in Minneapolis.
Hi, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Kiran.
(WEATHER REPORT)
MARCIANO: Kiran, back to you.
CHETRY: Sounds good, Rob. Thanks so much.
MARCIANO: You bet.
CHETRY: There are many tales of survival in the Minneapolis bridge collapse, but one man has an especially harrowing tale to tell. He was in a wheelchair, a paraplegic. How did you find his way out of disaster alone in his van when that bridge collapsed? He'll tell us, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHETRY: Well, there were many tales of survival as we've been talking about on the Minneapolis bridge collapse. But one man has a particularly unbelievable story to tell. He's a paraplegic. He was in a wheelchair alone in his van, yet he found a way to save himself, as well as others.
CNN's Gary Tuchman has his story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among the vehicles remaining on the bridge is this blue minivan. Its driver slammed on the breaks as the roadway collapse, but the van wasn't going to stop on time. So the driver, Marcello Cruz, took evasive action.
(on camera): In the last second, you swerved into the wall.
MARCELLO CRUZ, BRIDGE COLLAPSE SURVIVOR: Yeah. That's what I did.
TUCHMAN: That saved your life.
CRUZ: Yes.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): His close call harrowing, but maybe even more incredible because Marcello Cruz is a paraplegic. He was in a van as the bridge crumbled and the fire started to rage.
(on camera): How many cars did you see go in the water?
CRUZ: Twenty, something like that.
(voice-over): Marcello has a special hand brake and can normally get out of the vehicle himself.
(on camera): If you would have gotten out of your van by yourself you would have ended up in the river?
CRUZ: Yeah. With my wheelchair.
TUCHMAN: With the wheelchair. You would have rolled into the river.
(voice-over): While he waited helplessly, he heard a woman scream.
(on camera): What was she saying?
CRUZ: Help me, somebody, help me. You want to do something when you cannot do anything.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): He doesn't know what happened to the woman, but finally help came for him.
(on camera): Who got you out? CRUZ: There were a couple of people that helped me.
TUCHMAN: Do you know who they were?
CRUZ: No. I supposed they were working there, workers.
TUCHMAN: Probably you were grateful for that?
CRUZ: Yes.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Marcello keeps seeing his van on TV watching it with his mother, who was stunned when her son called her from the bridge.
MOTHER OF MARCELLO (Through translator): I was very scared, I was crying. I couldn't control myself because he was in so much danger.
TUCHMAN: The 26-year-old Mexican immigrant has suffered from back pain from his collapse. But because he doesn't have his van, he can't go to the emergency, so we were happy to drive him.
Marcello was left paralyzed after being shot and critically wounded by an unknown assailant seven years ago. He's no stranger to hospitals. He was relieved that doctors here told him these injuries are not serious. He feels he's a very lucky man.
(on camera): How will this change your life?
CRUZ: A lot because now I feel like I had to tell people that, you know, they have to live every day, you know, like it's going to be the last day of their life. You know, they have to enjoy every day.
MARCELLO (voice-over): This, coming from a man who says he has now had two near-death experiences.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Minneapolis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: We're both shaking our head. It's amazing, first of all, that he was able to get himself out like that and the fact that he has had such a great outlook given all that he's been through in his life.
ROBERTS: And that he had the presence of mind to run his van into the guard wall to keep himself from going down. This guy has had two near death experiences. Isn't that enough?
CHETRY: And yet he appreciates every day, so what a great guy Marcello is and a great story from Gary, bringing us a look at Marcello.
Well, still ahead...
ROBERTS: Hey, hey... CHETRY: Go ahead.
ROBERTS: I was just going to say we're going to meet another very, very lucky person in our next hour here on "AMERICAN MORNING." A woman who was in one of the cars, a half-ton pickup truck fell right on top of her and she'll be here to tell her tale.
CHETRY: All right, we look forward to hearing her survival story, as well.
Meanwhile, auto sales cruising for one kind of car anyway. Ali Velshi will be "Minding Your Business." He'll tell us which one, coming up next on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: We're coming up to a minute to the top of the hour.
Ali Velshi, "Minding Your Business," and we talked about some of the automakers turning a profit. It didn't necessarily translate into more car sales.
ALI VELSHI, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Because they've been cutting costs. Ford and GM both turned profits in the last quarter and a lot of people were really amazed by that. The profits were relatively small.
But what's happened, is for the first time ever, non-U.S. brands have out-sold U.S. brands right here in the United States. Toyota, of course, taking the lead on that one.
But for the first time, if you add up the Detroit Three -- those cars made by Chrysler, GM and Ford -- they only account for 48 percent of the cars sold in the United States in July.
Now, everybody, in fairness, is trending downward. Nobody saw an increase. I mean, there are just fewer cars being sold. But the share of it is going to non-U.S. brands.
Toyota reporting a fairly significant profit.
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