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New Jersey Train Crash Press Conference; Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 29, 2016 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:00] GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Director Prendergast to make some comments and then Governor Cuomo and I will come back to take on-topic questions.

Governor Cuomo.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

First I'd like to thank Governor Christie and his entire team for their outstanding response to this tragedy. Thank the lieutenant governor for being here and all the first responders.

We know what happened. We don't know why it happened. As Governor Christie said, the train, obviously, came in at too high a rate of speed. It didn't stop. It went through the barriers. When you see the destruction up close, the silver lining is that there's only been one fatality thus far because the destruction really is significant and the power of the train coming in is obviously devastating in its impact. The 100 injured and the fatality and the critically injured, we remember them in our prayers and we hope that there is only one fatality and it stops there.

The NTSB will do a full investigation as to what happened exactly and we'll let the facts speak for themselves. If there's something to learn from those facts after that investigation, then we will be sure to learn it and incorporate that lesson.

The Commissioner Hammer (ph) and MTA Chairman Prendergast are working very hard hand in glove in a seamless approach where New Jersey Transit is working with the MTA, is working with PATH, is working with the Port Authority to expedite tonight's commute and tomorrow's commute because, as the governor said, the structural damage to the station itself and we don't yet know how long that damage will take to repair or what the consequence of that damage.

I would like to applaud all the first responders who did a magnificent job once again and I'd also like to take this opportunity to say, these are difficult times over these past weeks and months between terrorist attacks, natural disasters. We have had our hands full in this country. We've had our hands full in the northeast.

I want to thank the Linden Police, who did an extraordinary job in apprehending Rahami in connection with the Chelsea bombing. And they really did a fantastic job. And I want to thank the coordination and the cooperation of our neighbors and partners in making that happen.

Today is another situation for us to deal with. But I also believe as many challenges as Mother Nature sends us, or our enemies send us, we are up to handling them. We'll handle them one at a time. But when we work together, there is nothing that we can't accomplish and nothing that we can't overcome. And we're going to do that with today's tragedy as well.

With that, I'll turn it back to Governor Christie.

CHRISTIE: Thank you, governor.

Commissioner Rick Hammer, who's the commissioner of transportation in New Jersey, and the chairman of New Jersey Transit, will address some of the transit issues that we'll be confronting in the days to come.

Commissioner.

COMMISSIONER RICK HAMMER, NEW JERSEY DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION: Thank you, governor.

Good afternoon.

As Governor Christie mentioned earlier, the PATH train service is going to be resumed here at this station this afternoon. We expect to run a full rush hour service. There's a couple of pilot trains that are going to be run in the next hour or so, but all indications are go. Safety inspections have shown us that there's no reason why we can't run the system at full peak rush hour capacity.

For the afternoon, New Jersey Transit is going to be expanding bus, rail, and light rail services as much as possible to make up for the closure of the rail line here at Hoboken. For buses, New Jersey Transit will increase service on the number 126 line between Hoboken and the Port Authority bus terminal. Customers will be notified where to get the service. A bus shuttle will run between Hoboken and Secaucus Station on a load-and-go basis. Customers will be directed to this service by ambassadors who are wearing safety vests.

The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail is currently suspended into and out of Hoboken Terminal. There are safety inspections on going as we speak. We hope to have that resume later, but at this point we're not ready to announce that. A bus shuttle will operate from Hoboken at the alternative bus service on Observer Highway to Newport Pavonia. All 8th Street to Hoboken Service is terminating at Newport Station. All Tonnele (ph) Avenue to Hoboken trains are terminating at Second Street. All west side avenue to Tonnele (ph) Avenue trains are running regular service. Customers who normally travel through Secaucus are urged to go to New York Penn Station for service. All other New Jersey Transit rail service is operating regularly, however customers may experience some overcrowding and possible delays due to congestion.

[14:05:28] Thank you very much.

CHRISTIE: Commissioner. MTA Chairman Prendergast will talk about how this is going to impact in New York and the plans that he and Governor Cuomo have to deal with that.

Chairman.

CHAIRMAN THOMAS PRENDERGAST, MTA: Thank you, governor.

Our west of Hudson service is operated - Metro North is operated by New Jersey Transit. We have about 1,200 daily customers on the (INAUDIBLE) Valley line and 1,800 customers on the Port Jervis (ph) lines. And for this evening's rush hour, those customers should utilize the Hudson service and go to the Tarrytown and Beacon Stations where we will have buses to be able to transport them to their ultimate destinations in New York.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow. We begin this hour with breaking news. A deadly train crash in Hoboken, New Jersey. You just heard this live press conference telling us all the updates. It happened just across the river from we are, right in Manhattan. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie just announced that 108 people have been injured in this, some of them still in critical condition at this hour. At least one person that was standing on that platform this morning in the middle of rush hour was killed as this train plowed through the station. Dozens of people were left under the rubble.

Take a look. This is new video of that train traveling along the tracks moments before the crash. This happened during rush hour, as I said. It was on the Valley line coming in on track five. Keep in mind, this is a critical rail hub. More than 15,000 people go through it every day. Let's listen to the press conference.

CHRISTIE: Second is the power supply to the building. As you know, it's energized tracks there. As soon as this happened, if you've seen the way the damage operated, there were wires everywhere. Port Authority Police, Transit Police made the decision to immediately cut power to that part of the building to ensure the safety of the people who were there. That was the right decision and so we have to determine when it would be available to restore power to those areas.

So there is a number of different aspects of this that have to be looked at by our engineers. Governor Cuomo's pledged the full support of the Port Authority, along with me, to have their engineers working with transit engineers to deal with what we need to deal with here.

The good news for some of our commuters who use PATH is, that this will not affect PATH service at all and they'll be able to continue to use the Hoboken terminal for PATH service. The structural integrity of those places are fine.

So I - the governor and I both feel the same way. The most important thing is the structural safety of that building and the safety of the people that were there. Remember, the one fatality we did have was not someone on the train, but someone who was killed by debris that was created while they were standing on the platform from the crash. And so we need to make sure that the entire portion of that building is safe from a power perspective and a structural perspective so that we don't have any unintended injuries going forward.

So that will be our first priority. When we determine that it's safe, we'll reopen the building, but we won't reopen it a minute earlier.

(INAUDIBLE) follow up? Follow up? I'm following up with him, please, thank you.

QUESTION: As far as all of this damage, even the use of the tracks without the terminal, you say it would probably be several days -

CHRISTIE: Can't tell you, Brian. You know, I'm not an -

QUESTION: It's going to be overnight, though?

CHRISTIE: It will be closed today, that much I can firmly tell you. Beyond that, as you know, I have many skills, engineering is not one of them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, (INAUDIBLE).

CHRISTIE: No. No, it's true. No, it is not. Engineering is not one of them. I'm going to leave this one to the engineers. And unless Cuomo has some training that he hasn't revealed to me yet, I think we'll both leave it to the engineers.

CUOMO: Yes, I'm with you.

CHRISTIE: Yes, sir?

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) is it possible this might have been some sort of a medical emergency? What do we know about why this happened?

CHRISTIE: We don't know a lot about why it happened. The engineer is fully cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation. And as I said in my opening statement, I learned a long time ago as U.S. attorney, as I know the governor did as attorney general, you don't jump to conclusions, you let the facts lead you to the conclusion. And so we have nothing really to add to that.

The one thing as Governor Cuomo mentioned that we know is that the train came in at much too high a rate of speed. And the question is, why is that? And we won't know that for some time. As soon as we know, you can be sure, we'll share it with the public. But it's not appropriate - not appropriate at this time.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

CHRISTIE: No, I don't, and it's not appropriate for us to comment beyond that at this time. Let's let law enforcement do their job.

QUESTION: Were there more serious injuries outside of the train, governor?

CHRISTIE: David. David. David. QUESTION: Governor, can you talk about positive train control? Where are we with that in New Jersey and could this have possibly prevented this from taking place?

[14:10:03] CHRISTIE: Again, David, that's speculation based - that can only be based upon the cause of the accident. And until we know the cause of the accident, we're not going to be able to know what steps we can take in the future to avoid an accident like this. So what I will tell people is pretty clear, that the commitment of New Jersey Transit, their first priority is to passenger safety. And so if there are measures that are recommended based upon the facts that are revealed for the cause of this accident, then New Jersey Transit will work to implement those and we will share those things with our partners at the MTA to make sure that passengers in New York and New Jersey who are commuting over this river, under this river every day, are kept as safe as possible.

Yes.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) -

CHRISTIE: Governor Cuomo.

CUOMO: Can I just -

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

CUOMO: The - there's no real point as to speculating what happened, why did the train come in so fast, was there a medical condition, what happened with the conductor, et cetera. We have no idea. And I don't think the speculation is especially helpful. The NTSB will come up, they will do a full investigation, you'll have the facts. Once we have the fact, if there is a lesson to learn, we will learn it.

But positive train control, et cetera, until you know what caused the problem, you don't know the solution. And as Governor Christie said, let the facts - let's find out the facts first and then let's follow the facts.

First order of business as to helping commuters tonight, tomorrow, the next day, the - you will never have had a more coordinated approach between the MTA, New Jersey Transit, Port Authority. All agencies are working together. We're sharing personnel. We're sharing equipment and resources in a way we have never done before. This regional collaboration is only getting stronger and we want all commuters to know, we will have the system up and running as fast as humanly possible.

QUESTION: Some people are nervous, governor -

CHRISTIE: Yes.

QUESTION: What would you say to the people who are nervous (INAUDIBLE)?

CHRISTIE: We can't - listen, we're not going to speak to any specifics regarding the one fatality. We want to make sure that all next of kin are appropriately notified and this would not be an appropriate notification. So we're not going to speak to that except to let you know that we are in the process of making sure that the victims' families are notified and handled in a dignified and appropriate manner. And beyond that it would be - it would be just wrong for us to comment on it.

QUESTION: Were most of the serious injuries in the train or in the station?

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) four -

CHRISTIE: Four cars, one engine. Four cars, one engine, engine in the back.

QUESTION: Were most of the -

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

CHRISTIE: NJ Transit will release that information as appropriate. We're not releasing it at the moment while we're in the middle of a pending investigation.

QUESTION: Were most of the injuries in the train or in the station?

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)?

CHRISTIE: No, it took out - there's an - there's an old style, as you know, you've been in there, an old style ceiling that's in that portion of the train station. It took out a number of the supporting structures for that ceiling. The ceiling in that area collapsed and it came to a stop at the wall that leads into the terminal.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

CHRISTIE: We have no indication that this is anything other than a tragic accident. But as Governor Cuomo has said, and I've said, we're going to let the law enforcement professionals pursue the facts. The folks from NTSB and the Federal Railway Administration, they're working in coordination with our state attorney general, Attorney General Porrino, and our state police to gather all the facts and then they'll brief us appropriately when they come to conclusions.

QUESTION: Were most of the -

QUESTION: You said you've spoken to the White House. What have they said to you?

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

CHRISTIE: From eyewitness accounting.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)

CHRISTIE: Don't. You know, the investigation takes as long as it's going to take to come to an appropriate conclusion. But I can say this, we have some of the best professionals in the Port Authority, in MTA and New Jersey Transit, anywhere in the world on mass transportation. And so I have a great deal of confidence in them and our law enforcement officers to come to a conclusion as quickly as any force of people could come to a conclusion.

QUESTION: Were most of the injuries in the train or in the station or what's -

CHRISTIE: Most of the injuries were in the train.

QUESTION: You said you've spoken to the White House, governor. What have they said to you.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

CHRISTIE: Again, we don't know because we don't know what the cause of the high rate of speed - again, I heard what - no, listen, you speak English. I speak English. I heard what you said. Now you let me answer and that's the way this system works. The fact is that we don't know what the cause of the high rate of speed was, therefore we cannot answer the question as to whether any other apparatus or systems could have slowed the train down or not based on that. So we're not going to speculate on that and I appreciate your question.

[14:15:16] QUESTION: You said you've spoken to the White House, governor. What have they told you and advised you?

CHRISTIE: The White House just offered their condolences for the victim and for their prayers for the survivors and made sure that the NTSB and the FRA were coordinating with law enforcement here and offered any further assets that we, the governor and I, deemed necessary to deal with the problem. It was a brief conversation, but the White House offered their full cooperation and I thanked them for reaching out and offering that cooperation.

QUESTION: And in terms of the exact speed of the train, you said that the (INAUDIBLE)?

CHRISTIE: Ii don't know the total number on the train. There were 108 injured and one fatality, as we said before.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

CHRISTIE: They vary. Some were people who were able to walk in and some who were taken by New Jersey Transit bus to a hospital, graded up to those who were removed by ambulance. So there's a varying degree of them. Right now we don't have any reason to believe that there will be any further fatalities, but again, that's going to be things that are determined by the care and treatment that they're given at the hospital and the severity of the injuries as they came in. But right now the only fatality we have is the one that we mentioned already.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

CUOMO: Well, look, the positive train control system no doubt can be a benefit depending on the circumstances. And what we're saying here is we don't know what the circumstances were that caused the train to continue at that rate of speed. It could be any number of things. It could be personal to the conductor, it could be an equipment failure, it could be anything. We have no idea. So before we start to prescribe what could be a solution, you really have to define the problem. You won't have the problem defined until after the investigation.

I know human nature says, how did this happen, we want to know and we want to know now. Unfortunately, we won't know today. We won't know until the investigation runs its course. But the train did come in at a high rate of speed. When you see the damage, if anything, I think the silver lining is that there was only one fatality. It really was a blessing. And as soon as we have the facts and we know how it happened, if we can come up with a reform and improvement that makes sure it doesn't happen again, that's exactly what we'll do.

In the meantime, we're cooperating on the investigation, we're cooperating on the reconstruction, we're cooperating on expediting the commute for tonight and for tomorrow morning and whatever we need to do the next day by pooling all of our resources, whether they be New York resources or New Jersey resources or Port Authority resources because we want to make sure we're doing every we can for the commuter.

QUESTION: Do we know an exact speed of the train?

CHRISTIE: Let me - let me just add - let me just add in - to what Governor Cuomo said so people can feel assured by this, not just by our words but by our actions. The fact is that over the last six years that Governor Cuomo and I have served in these positions together, we've gone through Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy and a number of terrorist attacks. What that's done for our relationship and for the relationships of our staffs has been these folks know how to deal with a crisis. That's why the first call that I received this morning after getting the call from my staff about this accident was from Governor Cuomo, who was preparing to go to Israel and canceled his trip in order to be here to help manage this crisis with me.

So what the people of the region need to be assured of is, I do not remember a time in the history of the state when I've been observing it when you've had a better and more tested relationship between the governor of New York and the governor of New Jersey and their respective staffs. And so when we say we're going to get this up and running as quickly as possible, people have a track record to watch from Irene, from Sandy that from terrorist attacks that the governor and I know how to do that and our staffs know how to do it because we've been tested, as have the people of New York and New Jersey been tested.

And that's one of the things you saw in there this morning, that regular commuters left the safety of where they were standing to rush to the train to help first responders evacuate injured people off the train. This region has developed a resilience that is admired by the rest of the world because of the way we've been tested. And so we have challenge, as the governor said, and we both believe that. But we have a system in place between the two of us and our administrations and an incredibly resilient people that allow us to be able to confront these things very directly.

[14:20:10] So when we have more information to give, we'll hold another briefing. Whether it's directly by the governor and I or whether it's by our folks who are in charge of the minute-to-minute operations of this, we'll let you know. We appreciate you coming out today, informing the public, and we'll continue to provide information regarding the evening commute if there's anything to add to what Commissioner Hammer and Chairman Prendergast already told you.

So thank you all for coming today.

CUOMO: Thank you.

HARLOW: There you have it, Governor Chris Christie, Governor Andrew Cuomo joining together, updating us about the fatal train crash today in Hoboken.

At this hour, we know there has been one fatality. We know 108 people have been injured. Some of them in critical condition.

I want to go to Deborah Feyerick. She's been on the scene since early this morning when this all happened.

Deborah, I was listening early to one of the witnesses you spoke to and it stopped me in my tracks, what they saw, what happened. Walk us through the events of day.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. This is a man, he is also a freight engineer and he had just passed by track number five where the accident occurred and all of a sudden he heard this loud explosion, the moment of impact. He said it was like a kaboom, just so loud, and then complete stillness before the entire area erupted into chaos. He said he heard a gush of water. He ran to the tracks, this area of the track, and he saw a number of people lying on the ground severely injured. One woman, who he believes was dead from the - from an injury that she sustained when that happened.

We can tell you right now, Poppy, that the engineer, all right, he is critical to all of this. He is cooperating with law enforcement, we're now told. He is - he was critically injured in this accident, but one of the witness, that man you said, you described, that witness said he went up to the cab and saw the engineer slumped forward in the front. He was over the controls. And it looked as if he was unresponsive is how it was described. Here's the account.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BLAINE, FREIGHT ENGINEER: When I came out of Dunkin' Donuts 30 seconds after it happened, I looked to the right and I just saw the train in the building, and I'm like, whoa, that train had to come in about 30 miles an hour. Maybe a little more. But -

QUESTION: Can you explain what you saw? What happened afterwards?

QUESTION: You said there was a - you said there was an override system that prevented that. BLAINE: Well, the override system come on like within 30 seconds of

touching the throttle, really, it should come on. Like when I ride an engine - I'm an engineer with 17 years. When I'm on a train and I'm running and - no matter what speed it is, if I'm running the train, actually, and I run on Jersey Transit. If I'm running the train, and just say I just maybe fall asleep or pass out, have a heart attack, 30 - say the 30 seconds starts, I mean, the 60 seconds - I'm sorry, the 60 seconds starts when I pass out. So now when I pass - if I'm passing out, just when I close my eyes, I pass out, 60 seconds starts counting. So I didn't touch that throat in 60 seconds, that light starts beeping. Beep. Beep.

QUESTION: Is it a button or do you have to - it's a -

BLAINE: Oh, no, it's automatically built on our trains. That sucker will come on. I run an Amtrak every day to -

QUESTION: Will it stop the train?

BLAINE: It will stop the train.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: And I asked that engineer whether, in fact, there would have been enough time for that emergency system to engage. He says based on what he saw, he doesn't believe so.

And, Poppy, we can tell you that complicating the rescue efforts was the fact that there was massive structural damage when the train essentially hit that bumper and jumped on to the concourse platform and it took down part of the ceiling, part of the beam. There were live electrical wires. You heard the governor saying that the electrical power has been cut off. But there was also the presence of water. So all of that was done. And when the fire department, local fire department and police and first responders arrived, they had to clear the area because there was so much debris that was falling that they didn't want to incur additional injuries. So they're trying the area. They're trying to evacuate the train. They're doing it under incredibly difficult circumstances.

And we have just seen just a few moments ago some of the flood lights brought in. Those will operate independently so that investigators can continue to look and see what happened. We do know that the NTSB, right now on their way here and they're sending their go team, their elite team to determine what happened, Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, and just remarkable accounts from Governor Christie there of what average folks did, the commuters, just dropping all of their stuff and rushing to help in this crisis.

FEYERICK: Absolutely.

HARLOW: Amazing to see. Deborah, thank you very much for that reporting.

Let me go now to CNN analyst Mary Schiavo. You're the former inspector general for the U.S. Department of

Transportation. And we just heard Governor Chris Christie say, quote, "we do not know the cause of the high rate of speed." But we do know this train was going very fast. We don't know why. Twofold question here, Mary, let me start with this. What could have caused that excessive - what appears to be excessive speed?

[14:25:07] MARY SCHIAVO, CNN ANALYST: Well, based on prior crashes - and that's what I always look at, what has happened in the past to draw on to give me clues as to what might have happened here, in over speed crashes, what typically is the case is either engineer inattention or some incapacity with the engineer and occasionally it has been a malfunction. We have some - seen some crashes where there have been malfunctions of signals indicating or failing to indicate there were problems on the track, but we don't have any problems on the track here, so it does appear to be some problem with the engineer or, like I said, perhaps secondarily some problem with the sensing of the conditions on the track, which is not likely.

HARLOW: So, Mary, we heard a lot of people ask in the press conference about something called PTC, that's positive train control. And the reason it matters is because this is something that automatically kicks in when the engineer can't to slow down a train or, frankly, to stop it. Now Congress had mandated in 2015 that all trains, commuter trains, have that. Then it extended the deadline out to 2018 because a lot of the municipalities came back and said, look, we can't meet that deadline. We don't know if this train had positive train control or not. One New York senator, State Senator Patrick Maloney, said it did not have that. Would that have prevented this?

SCHIAVO: It could have. You know, positive train control took a very long time, in fact, they were working on it when I was in the department. Positive train control is basically smart track and smart trains. The track and the train talk to each other and give each other advice about what's ahead. Are you going the right speed for the track? Is there something on the track ahead that should cause you to slow down? And so here, if the over speed situation was already occurring on that portion of track where the train should have been slowed, yes, it could have helped to slow the train. If what happened - whatever happened to the engineer or in the cab, whatever occurred, happened to close to the station, it takes a long time to slow a train. It doesn't happen, you know, in just a few feet depending on the speed or the train and the weight of the train. It might have not been passable even with positive train control to stop the train before it hit the bumper in the station. But the rate of speed at which the train was going suggests that it had been speeding and hadn't slowed really much at all. So positive train control might have helped.

HARLOW: Mary Schiavo, thank you very much for that.

Also, we just heard from Secretary Hillary Clinton moments ago addressing what happened. She was speaking at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I was terribly upset this morning to learn about a train crash in New Jersey. That's very personal to me. I live in New York. People commute into New York from New Jersey. We had about 100 commuters injured and one died. I just want to send our thoughts and prayers to them because it's a horrible accident that ran into the depot and caused all kinds of damage. So i want to lift up the people of New Jersey and New York today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Also, Donald Trump, just in the past few moments, tweeting his condolences, writing, "my condolences to those involved in today's horrible accident in New Jersey. My deepest gratitude to all of the amazing first responders."

Coming up next, to politics and the Trump campaign scrambling for a new debate strategy before October 9th. The candidate appears he has other ideas and apparently sex scandals and Monica Lewinsky are on the table. We will discuss.

Also, Gary Johnson with another gaffe, this one some say worse. He couldn't name a world leader when asked about it in a town hall last night. We'll talk about it, next.

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