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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Recovery Efforts Continue in Texas; Two Suspects Sought in Boston Bombings; New Video of Damage from Fertilizer Plant Explosion; Manhunt Underway for Boston Bomb Suspects

Aired April 18, 2013 - 22:00   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone.

We're following two big stories tonight. The Boston Marathon investigation is now a manhunt. The FBI needs your help finding these two men. We are going to bring you the latest on that and show you more of those images.

But we begin with the tragedy that is unfolding all around us right now in this small town of West ever since the fertilizer plant here blew up last night. Search and rescue operations in places, recovery work elsewhere, scores of people being treated in area hospitals as far as away as Dallas, about 75 miles from here.

Earlier tonight, state and local authorities spoke to reporters describing the enormous damage this fertilizer plant did when it exploded, and the police didn't give any fatality estimates at all, but we know it's heavy among first-responders. We're not speculating tonight over numbers. There's too much riding on it.

We have been hearing their stories everywhere. People are coming to us, telling us those stories of incredible bravery in the face of a fire, volunteer firemen, volunteer EMS personnel who went to the blast, went to do whatever they could.

In a moment, I will be talking with a paramedic who is on his way to the recover bodies of some of his friends. Just minutes ago -- well, we will tell you his story ahead. He will tell you it to you himself as he wants to.

There's a lot to talk tonight about. This is a town in mourning and a town which is banding together supporting one another. First, let's just take a look at how we got to this terrible point.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): 7:29 p.m., the first reports of a fire. The flames are visible from miles away and the plant burns for about 20 minutes before this.

(EXPLOSION)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It like picked you up, it just took your breath away, and then it dropped you. And it like exploded everything around you. I mean, gusts of wind, it was like a suction and then just blew it all out.

COOPER: This man and his two young daughters about 300 yards from the plant when he stops to take video of the flames.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You OK? You OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dad, I can't hear. I can't hear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cover your ears.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get out of here. Please get out of here.

COOPER: The father and his girls are unharmed. The explosion is so powerful, it registers as a 2.1 magnitude seismic event, the rumblings felt as far as 50 miles away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There has been an explosion. There are firefighters down.

COOPER: Firemen who were already on scene battling the flames are reported missing.

DR. GEORGE SMITH, WEST EMS DIRECTOR: It's just overwhelming to us. We're a town of 2,400. We have three ambulances. And there are literally hundreds of people hurt. I know -- I don't -- I haven't been there, but I'm very worried that my ambulance that was on scene, those personnel are probably deceased. I think some of the firemen may be deceased.

COOPER: Buildings near the plant are blown out by the blast, including a nursing home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The rest home has been seriously damaged. We have many people down. Please respond.

COOPER: Patients were already being evacuated from the nursing home because of the fire, but not everyone made it out before the blast.

QUESTION: Did you see it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, everybody was trapped.

QUESTION: Do you know how many people, how many elderly people are there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just a guess, I don't know for sure. I don't know, maybe like 115 or something like that.

COOPER: The plant continues to burn, raising fears that toxic gases may be released into the air. The fertilizer plant had 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, according to "The Dallas Morning News," which can cause severe burns and even death.

By dawn, local hospitals report more than 160 wounded patients, some in critical condition. In the light of day, the devastation from the powerful blast becomes clear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over here, there's a hot water heater and you can see the bathtub. This is obviously the bathroom of this home that is now gone.

COOPER: By 9:00 a.m., heavy rains help control the flames and also help dissipate any chemicals which may have been released. But residents of the town remain missing. Emergency workers are now in the middle of a search-and-rescue mission and authorities say they don't know how many people may still be trapped under the rubble.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Joining me now is West Paramedic Brice Reed.

How are you doing? How is your family doing?

BRICE REED, WEST EMS PARAMEDIC: We're holding up.

COOPER: You're together?

REED: Yes, sir. We're -- you know, everybody in EMS and in civil services is really binding together and being there for each other and that's what we're doing right now, is we're just trying to be there for each other and be there for the people that are missing right now.

COOPER: I don't want to put you on the spot so you tell me what you want to talk about, but can you tell me some of the things you saw last night?

REED: I can tell you that there is absolutely no words that I possess that can convey adequately what I saw.

I can tell you what I saw last night was -- it went from my hometown and my reality and my existence to a war zone in an instant. And I don't -- I guess I haven't even had time to process that yet.

COOPER: Your house is gone?

REED: Gone. Yes. I mean, it's -- you know, the over-pressure from the blast actually blew the doors off the hinges. My daughter Serena (ph) has glass fragments embedded in the wall. It's gone.

COOPER: And you have lost friends, colleagues, close friends?

REED: Yes, many.

COOPER: Do you even know at this point everybody you have lost or...

REED: No.

It's -- West is a really small town. As I have always had to explain to people, they ask where you're from, and I say West, Texas, and they say, what part? No, no, no, no, West, Texas. COOPER: Yes. West, by the way, is named after the first mayor of the town.

REED: Right. You got me. I don't...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: You're from Abbott, which is I know Willie Nelson is from.

REED: Yes. Yes. I'm actually from Rockwall, but moved to West.

And I woke up this morning with a changed reality that I'm never going to see West, Texas, again in my life. I'm not. Being with EMS is -- you know, you don't know how people get your phone numbers and I'm on the board with West, and hence why I'm speaking with you is with West EMS is -- I have received phone calls from London, from Saudi, from Australia, from South Africa, from literally all over the globe of this outpouring of support and it's absolutely amazing.

COOPER: And that's been important to you?

REED: Yes.

That's what we wanted to convey or that I wanted to convey as a member of West EMS.

COOPER: You can feel that support?

REED: It goes beyond that.

It's whenever you are at the worst time in your life that nobody can understand and you're in the one place that means everything to you, and you realize the entire world takes a pause to say we're sorry and is there anything we can do to help is -- all the way to ground zero, every one of us are incredibly humbled and grateful for that outpouring of support and thanks and love.

And in a situation like this, you feel like you're alone but it is incredibly humbling to have everything that everyone has done for us. I don't know where to begin in saying thank you. And I don't know where to begin in saying, you know, we are West and we will get back to that.

COOPER: But you are West and you will be West. This town is going to rise again.

REED: Absolutely.

This is a big -- it's a town, but it's more than that. It is -- it's the only place on earth that I have ever been where if I have a problem literally, all the stops were pulled out, where everybody will do anything that they can to help you.

COOPER: Down by the Czech Bakery, they are refusing to take any money today. They are giving away food. Over at the drugstore, I was stopping in there earlier, the pharmacy there collecting clothes for people. Folks are cooking a barbecue right across the street from us right now. It's kind of an amazing spirit.

REED: It is.

Welcome to West. That's what I will tell you. It's not just because of this incident. That that's the way these people are here, is they are absolutely incredible. And a situation like this really brings out the true character of individuals and I'm proud to live here. I'm proud to be a part of this community.

COOPER: I should just point out, too, for folks who don't realize, that Brice is a volunteer. Everybody is a volunteer here, fire department, EMS. People who didn't have to go to that blast went to that blast. People who could have stayed at home, didn't have to go, and they did.

REED: They were all volunteer.

There was not one person -- there was not one person that got paid, not one person that was told. They all just went.

COOPER: People went knowing that could blow.

REED: That's our job.

When other people are running away, by nature our job is to run towards what people are running away from because we -- we have to do. We have to do what we have to do. And by nature, that's what we do.

COOPER: It's also important, I think, that people realize because of the first-responders who went there, you and the others who realized, you know what, we need to start evacuating folks out of here, that saved lives. The fires were burning before that explosion and before the explosion people started to get evacuated.

REED: We did our best to get people out of the area. And, you know, in the beginning, it was just a fire and not going into too much operations detail...

COOPER: Sure.

REED: ... because I can't disclose that at this point in time.

But what I can say is that we -- we have -- we did our best to keep everybody safe. And nobody could have seen this coming, nobody, nobody. I have been doing this for 13 years. And there's no way I would have ever dreamed that this would have happened.

I mean, it's profound and it's dire and it hurts like hell. But the main thing is that we wanted to convey is that, you know, please keep the prayers coming. Please keep the thoughts coming. Please keep the everything going because it helps.

COOPER: Thank you, Brice. I appreciate it.

REED: Thank you.

COOPER: It's really an honor to talk to you, Brice Reed.

Just ahead, much more on what people here are starting to come to grips with. As you can tell, from just hearing with Brice, people don't know the full extent of this at this point. And we're not giving out any numbers because that's just speculation and the people here deserve more than speculation. Until we have hard numbers, hard facts, we're not going to give them to you. But we want you to hear their stories. We want you to hear what people are going through and people here what you to know what they're going through and the changed reality that they are now living with and that they will be living with for weeks and months and years to come.

Also tonight, we have got to tell you about all of the stuff that is happening out of Boston, two of the most wanted men in the world tonight. The FBI released these images today of the Boston bombing suspects -- coming up, all the new developments in the investigation on that. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: As we said at the top of the broadcast, we're following two big stories tonight, new details in the bombs and no less significantly on two suspects.

Today, the FBI made it known this is a manhunt, a massive manhunt. Take a look at these photos. And you no doubt have seen them already. The images we are showing you from here on out, these are the two men the FBI says it's looking for. They say they are being swamped tonight with tips.

All of that is very good news. Two men they are calling suspects, warning they would be considered armed and dangerous. Not persons of interest, suspects, the FBI says, two men with backpacks, one of whom, the one with the white hat there on the right, was caught on tape according to the FBI planting one of those bags shortly before the blast.

The bureau did not provide, we should point out, footage of that but did supply this clip of the two men making their way one after the troops down sidewalks near the explosion sites. You will be seeing plenty of this video here and everywhere.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD DESLAURIERS, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: Today, we are enlisting the public's help to identify the two suspects.

After a very detailed analysis of photo, video and other evidence, we are releasing photos of these two suspects. They are identified as suspect one and suspect two. They appear to be associated. Suspect one is wearing a dark hat. Suspect two is wearing a white hat.

Suspect two set down a backpack at the site of the second explosion just in front of the Forum restaurant.

We strongly encourage those who were at the Forum restaurant who have not contacted us yet to do so.

We consider them to be armed and extremely dangerous. No one should approach them. No one should attempt to apprehend them, except law enforcement.

Let me reiterate that caution. Do not take any action on your own. If you see these men, contact law enforcement. If you know anything about the bombings or the men pictured here, please call the telephone listed on the photo arrays. That's 1-800-CALL-FBI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Special Agent DesLauriers could not emphasize that enough. Make a phone call. Do not, do not approach these two people. As he said, they could be armed and dangerous.

The FBI provided as we showed you provided several still frames they believe best identify the men. To give you more angles, a better shot at recognizing the men, we have dug into the video and we have pulled out the frames that you are seeing now. Again, this is by no means perfect and the hats obviously do make it harder.

We have also slowed things down a bit in case that helps you. It goes without saying, the FBI has trained photo interpreters, more videos to work with than they are releasing right now.

We should also caution that many people may resemble these men. The FBI though is counting on someone seeing something that stands out and points clearly to a name.

Joining me now is Susan Candiotti and also Joe Johns in Washington. Both have been working their sources.

Susan, you got in some new information about the behavior of the suspects. What is it?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Anderson.

Anderson, all of us -- it is chilling enough to watch the video moments before the bombing and to see these two suspects walking down the sidewalk, but we're all wondering about when it happened and afterwards. A federal law enforcement who has seen these videos told me and shared this information with me and he said they acted differently than anyone else.

They stood and they watched and after it happened, he said they casually walked away. It's almost unfathomable to hear that happened. But he said when all of the other people were running around and attending to casualties, these people just turned around and casually walked away -- Anderson.

COOPER: And a lot of attention, Susan, being paid to what the suspects are wearing in both images. Both are wearing baseball caps, certainly not an unusual item in Boston. What are you hearing about that?

CANDIOTTI: That's right. These baseball caps, look, we're all staring at them time and again. We want to see more of them.

Those are amazingly clear pictures, but we also wanted to see if we could find something a little bit clearer. Doing research, we found at least one baseball cap that looks very similar to the dark one that you see in the video. You can see the logo much more clearly. It appears to be the same one.

But the idea of showing these and the other pictures is try to jog someone's memory, that if you see something, as the FBI said, call them up. Let them know if you think you recognize something. And the other thing that we learned, Anderson, that they are doing to try to find these people, is they are tracking cell phones. As we talked about this a few days ago, one of the things that is normally done and it's happening here, they are going to the cell phone towers, they're looking for all cell phone calls that were made right before the bombing occurred and tracing records, try to trace those calls and determine whether any of those calls were made by these two people.

They don't know their names. If they come up with some names, those names might not necessarily match up with the phones but they are trying everything they can. And one other thing they're doing, we talked to a hobby store today and we know the FBI has been calling around to see whether in this case this store told us they were asked whether they sold or carry any nails and whether someone came in recently to buy small nails.

We know that nails were one of the components in that metal pressure cooker that when it exploded became shrapnel. They were also asking about remote control devices, whether those were sold. It turned out not to be the case, but certainly we know that the FBI is looking at that -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yes. And in the video on the right in which you see the guy in the white hat, suspect number two, when you see him walking from the rear, he seems to have his right leg kind of bowlegged almost. You see it right there. Whether or not -- he's intentionally doing that to throw off or whether that is for some reason his leg, has something wrong with his leg, or it's bowed out, that could be an identifying marker as well.

Joe, you have some new information from a source about the means by which the bombs may have been detonated.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Possible means, yes, Anderson.

A federal law enforcement official briefed on the investigation tells CNN producer Carol Cratty that the current thinking is that the devices were remotely detonated, but the official would not go into any details. The official would not say if they were set off by cell phone or by some other method. The official said the bulk of the material recovered came from the black bag we talked about on Wednesday, but the official added that the bag showed up in a lot of pictures yesterday and it's something next to a mailbox, but that appears to have nothing to do with the explosions.

Also, an executive with the Tenergy Company in California confirmed to CNN today that the battery found at the scene and photographed by officials is typically used in remote-controlled hobby cars and trucks. The company has been contacted by law enforcement officials investigating the attack in Boston.

You see the Tenergy battery there. The official said it's accurate that the FBI has video showing the reaction of the two suspects and the official said he wasn't going to speculate about what that reaction means -- Anderson, back to you.

COOPER: Right. Interesting stuff.

Joe, Susan, thank you.

CNN analysts Fran Townsend and Juliette Kayyem joining me now as well. Fran served as homeland security for the George W. Bush administration. She's also the CIA and Department of Homeland Security external advisory boards. Also, Juliette was homeland security adviser for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Juliette, what do you make of these videos? What jumped out to you?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN ANALYST: Well, it was a dramatic shift today and one that is worth remembering in terms of what we saw.

If you notice, it was only law enforcement now. It was the head of the FBI here and our U.S. attorney. All the politicians, all the first-responders are gone. This is all about the investigation.

For me and for like Fran, people that know the FBI, this is an incredible sea change from an FBI that was accused around 9/11 of just close-holding all the information. This was a calculated risk on their part. We hope that they are looking at the right people.

It's clear that whatever else they have in terms of the film discloses enough information for them to take this risk, that they need to know more about these people. But they are being cautious as well. Then finally, this crowd-sourcing aspect of this that the FBI is doing, this is very equivalent to the July 7 attacks in London. This is what the British police did.

This is -- has to do with how good the technology is and how many pictures there are now in our society. So this is a very familiar thing and will be more so in the future. It feels very unique to us and -- but we will get used to it. This is how law enforcement will find people a lot of the times.

COOPER: Fran, there is sort of -- sort of watching these images, an incredible nonchalance about these two people, walking if -- in fact they are who the FBI thinks they may be and they are about to do what the FBI thinks they did, they are incredibly kind of confident and nonchalant.

FRANCES TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely, Anderson.

And the takeaway from that is, these guys were very familiar with their surroundings and where they were. They are not wandering around. They're got a plan. They're walking quickly and deliberately in the directions of the bombings. You have to presume -- you don't just get lucky, right, constructing these things and getting them to detonate?

We have seen plenty of plots where they didn't detonate. These guys really practiced. We have got to presume they practiced the construction to make sure they had that right and we have to presume that they basically cased and surveilled this area. They understood where barriers would be, where people would be. They understood where they were going to place it. That wasn't a last-minute decision.

And as a result of -- given all of those indicators, we also have to presume that they were equally careful about ultimately planning an escape.

COOPER: Juliette, there are a lot of ways to get in and out of Boston, by car, by subway, obviously, bridges, tunnels, obviously Logan Airport. A lot of those areas have cameras that obviously could help authorities match up other sightings, correct?

KAYYEM: Absolutely.

In fact, immediately after the attacks, a normal protocol that has worked through the JTTF is to look around Logan, South Station, all of these places that you can exit. But where I am standing right now is the entrance to the Mass Turnpike.

There are a lot of areas around here that get you out of Boston relatively quickly. But we don't know. They could have jumped on the T. The T. was running that day at mass capacity. They could have jumped on the T, which is our subway line, and gotten out of Boston relatively quickly.

But that's exactly right. The comings and goings of them from the site what is key and why the FBI is now reaching out to the public, because even if you didn't see them here, you may have seen them immediately afterwards leaving town or beforehand.

And just picking up on what Fran said, I absolutely agree these are people who were from Boston, not maybe lived here, but they had some presence here before just, whether it's the gentlemen that the FBI has the pictures of or others, just because you wouldn't want to transport those kinds of materials too far in a car or in an airplane.

That's why the investigation was so targeted on Boston and why a lot of the clues, both forensic and eyewitness, are coming from here. And it may be a while. We have been preparing for that. So -- but once captured, it doesn't matter if they were from here or anywhere else. They are going through the criminal justice system like any other criminal.

COOPER: Fran, the fact that there are two suspects here, does that double the chances of finding them, the fact that there's two people? Somebody might have observed one of them.

Are two more people likely to get caught than one? Is it harder to catch one person?

TOWNSEND: It's much harder to catch one person, because as we know from prior cases of lone wolves, these people tend to be reclusive. They don't have a lot of connectivity to the outside world.

With two people, look, let's just start with your nuclear family. Right? Both of these guys has got a mother and a father and family. If they see this picture, they are going to recognize their own family. Their confidence in the way they move through a crowd doesn't suggest that these are reclusive guys. So, they probably have friends or they work or they have other students and colleagues.

So, I don't think this was terribly risky for the FBI. They needed the help. And everything they have got, we should say to our viewers, they have a ton more that they are not showing us. They showed us a very small clip of what they know about these guys.

There will be the forensic evidence from all the material they collected, the cell phones. All of that will be brought together to help target these guys.

COOPER: Yes.

Fran Townsend, Juliette Kayyem, appreciate your expertise tonight.

Coming up, inside the disaster zone here in Texas. Dr. Sanjay Gupta was able to show -- or to get up close, see some of the damage. He's going to tell us what he saw next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: We're here in the Texas town called West, people are pulling together, as we've been telling you, to help each other, to help their friends and their neighbors who was left suddenly homeless after a fertilizer plant explosion hit this small, close-knit town and hit it hard. The impact of the explosion was massive. The destruction in a four to five-block radius overwhelming and most importantly the human toll, as we mentioned, is still being assessed.

You're looking at new pictures now from inside the disaster zone. A lot of destruction. Absolute destruction on some blocks.

I want to show you some more incredible images right now. Images that we really think drive home what this town is dealing with right now. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dad?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't hear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cover your ears.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't hear. Get out of here. Please get out of here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please get out of here. Please get out of here. Oh, my god. Dad, please get out of here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my god. (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't even recognize this. I have no idea where I am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It had to have been a plane. What else could it have been?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. Oh, my god. Andrea Elizabeth lives in those apartments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought something fell on my house. I mean, I lived down past the family --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that your kid?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. It's my grandbaby. He was in the apartment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't find Andrew.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She'd been home?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god. People (INAUDIBLE) on fire. Oh my god.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Just to hear that over again and over again, oh, my god. So many people saying that today. Many people here in West had no warning last night when their world blew up. Some were able to evacuate before the explosion, thanks to the quick thinking of the paramedics, like Brice, who you met earlier. A lot of them were just going about their business, though. A typical Wednesday night, some were probably eating dinner, maybe watching some television, and then their world exploded. The disaster zone has been cordoned off but our chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta got an up close look today. Here's some of what he saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: As soon as you come into the community which we've been allowed to do, no one else had been in here. You see some of the obvious signs of damage, blown-out windows. And we're, you know, about half a mile away from the explosion site. But this is a school over here that we've been talking so much about. That was a school and you can see the entire side of it sort of collapsed inside over there.

You come over here and take a look. And you see some of the buildings still off in the distance. This home, first of all, if you look at it, just come and take a look. I mean, the front door literally pulled away on this house. This is -- this is what it looks like inside. It is quite extraordinary. It's hard to tell you the magnitude of this blast and what it did but these images give you somewhat of a better idea. Just take a -- take a look. I think these images are important to be able to show to you just how significant this impact was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: And Sanjay Gupta joins me now. What really stuck out at you just traveling around there?

GUPTA: You know, so we're about a quarter mile away. And when you think about that distance and just how much that primary blast wave, you know, how powerful it was.

COOPER: Yes.

GUPTA: How far it went, it's pretty significant, especially when you're comparing it to Boston, which is also a significant blast, both in terms of the force but also the shrapnel, but even buildings across the street, you know, you didn't see windows blown out. Here a quarter mile away, doors ripped off the frames. So that was pretty significant.

Also, Anderson, remember with Katrina and other natural disasters, there'd be some houses that were presumably spared and then other houses next to it really devastated. So you had an almost random quality about that. But it's a real -- I mean, everyone is gone.

COOPER: Yes.

GUPTA: It's a ghost town in there. COOPER: Yes. You know, there had to have been so much concern among first responders about toxic chemicals in the air, about the ammonia in the air. Thankfully today that has not been a concern.

GUPTA: Yes. And they were very methodical about this. You worry about this with the fertilizer plant. But they set up 12 -- a dozen exactly testers in a quarter mile radius around the plant and they basically left them there. They gave telemetries so they're basically sending a signal back to a command center constantly and only one reading was at six parts per million and that's not significant enough to be of concern.

That was the highest reading. So they expected the worst. But it did not happen. And luckily this anhydrous ammonia, this particularly concerning chemical, is lighter than air. So because it was windy and I think because of the weather conditions primarily they probably got up and just sort of dispersed very quickly.

COOPER: Yes. Just a little bit of good news here. Sanjay, appreciate it.

GUPTA: Thank you.

COOPER: Thanks very much.

Another story that speaks to the type of town this is, a husband and wife who rushed to that nursing home that partially collapsed after the blast, they went there to help and they put themselves in danger. We'll meet them, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back. We're here in the town in Texas called West, West, Texas, a town reeling from what happened here earlier -- last night. We're still getting new images of that explosion. We just got some new in just in the last couple of minutes. Just want to show this to you, well, I'm seeing it for the first time. Just gives you a sense of just how powerful this was. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god. Get in the truck. Get in the truck.

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: I want to stress again, we do not know what caused the explosion at the West Fertilizer Company. We don't know what caused the initial fire that ultimately led to the explosion. There's still many questions about that and about how many people have died, how many people exactly are injured. We're not going to speculate on that tonight. That terrible work, answering those questions, that goes on tonight and will go on tomorrow.

With me now are two people who tried to save lives at a nursing home that collapsed.

Billy and Stephanie Burch, I appreciate both of you being with us. Where were you when the blast occurred?

WILLIAM BURCH, HELPED EVACUATE PEOPLE FROM NURSING HOME: We were at home. It was about four miles from where it actually happened. Next to the auction barn is where we live. And so when we felt the explosion, it was instinct to just kind of jump off and we looked outside and saw the mushroom cloud, and I was like, we've got to go.

COOPER: And so where did you go?

STEFFANIE BURCH, HELPED EVACUATE PEOPLE FROM NURSING HOME: Well, the first thing, I was studying for a test. We just grabbed shoes, clothes, we jumped in the car. The first thing we came across was the nursing home. I told my husband to stop the car, and I just got out, ran in, just started grabbing people.

COOPER: And at this point, I mean, the nursing home -- one whole side of it looked like it had just been blown off.

S. BURCH: Well, there is window caved in, the ceiling was caved in, there was ceiling tiles, insulation, water coming down, I mean, it was just a mess. I mean, it was amazing, so --

COOPER: Were you all frightened? Because I mean, you know it's a fertilizer plant. You know there are chemicals -- could be chemicals in the air.

W. BURCH: Not frightened at all. I mean, it's one of those things to where the only thing I was frightened about was just the people that were in there, so when we pulled up and I saw the awnings and everything blown off, and there wasn't a window in the building, O just knew we had to do something.

So Steffanie jumped out of the car and she went to one wing and then I knew that the other side would have to be worse because it was closer and so that was where I ran into and when I went running in there and saw a lady that was in a wheelchair and blood was all over her face, at that point, reality struck and I knew just how urgent we had to be to get things moving. So I did -- started doing door to door searches, going through.

You could hardly make it down the halls there was so much debris. Walls that were supposed to be upright are leaning. Inside in the hallways. Everything was hanging down. We had sheetrock. One of the first rooms that I went into, I heard a lady screaming and I looked over and --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And you could actually hear people screaming? W. BURCH: Oh, you could hear people screaming. They wanted -- you know, they wanted out. They were screaming for their lives and one of the ladies that I was in the room and got her out, and I could still hear something but I couldn't see anybody. So I literally had to remove an entire sheet of sheetrock off of her bed that was on top of her. And then got her up and carried her over and got her in a wheelchair and started taking them to the nurses.

And you just went from door to door. And every room was like that. And one of the most bizarre things was there was a -- there was a little man that was standing outside of one of the windows and he was like he was yelling and he says, sir, sir, my wife's over here and I was like, what are you doing? And he goes, my wife's over here. He wasn't even a resident. He'd come over because of what had happened.

And his wife, I don't know if she was blown out of the bed or if she'd fallen out, I don't exactly know, but she was laying in the middle of the floor. So I picked her up and got her out and I was trying to get him around also but we still had more rooms to search. And I know that there was -- there was 16 people that I got out before we had any real major assistance that came in to help us. It was just the nurses and us that was working trying to get it in.

COOPER: And Steffanie, I mean, you've done multiple deployments with the Air Force over the years. What was it like for you to see all this?

S. BURCH: It was just second nature. I mean, you talk about fear. I mean, the military trains you just to react, think later. I mean, there is no fear. It's just -- you just go in and you do what you have to do.

COOPER: How are things now, I mean, in this town today? It seems like people have really banded together.

W. BURCH: There is. There is a nice band of people here together and everything. I know that a lot of the local people here would like to be back in and helping because that's one of our biggest concerns is we were sitting there last night and even though we're sore and beaten up from all of it, once we got all the blood off of us and everything, it was more on the lines of, what more can we do?

COOPER: Yes.

W. BURCH: You know? Can we please get in there? Because both of us have been trained in so many different aspects that we know if we could get in there and do something, that's what we would do.

COOPER: Yes. And there's a lot of people haven't been able to get back to their homes to see if their homes are OK.

Steffanie and Billy, appreciate what you did so much. Thanks for talking to us.

W. BURCH: Thank you.

COOPER: Bill and Steffanie Burch. Amazing.

For information on how you can help survivors of the explosion here in Texas, and also of course of the Boston bombing, go to CNN.com/impact. There's a whole bunch of different organizations on that Web site right now and there's going to be a lot of help that's going to be needed here, not just in the next couple of hours, the next couple of days, but we're talking weeks and months.

Coming up, the latest on the investigation into the Boston bombings. We're going to show you those videos, show you the still images of the two suspects and we'll hear from a counterterrorism expert on what he sees in those images. Significant things you might want to watch for. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: I want to show you again some of the pictures the FBI released today of those two suspects in the Boston marathon bombings. The videos from the FBI, it shows the two suspects, as we said, both wearing backpacks, one in a black hat, one in a white hat.

Susan Candiotti's source telling her now that investigators are focusing on both the types of hats and the behavior, the apparent confidence of the men wearing those hats, and their behavior after the bombings. And as we look at additional images we isolated from that video, we should tell you about Joe Johns' reporting as well. His sources telling him that investigators are inclined to believe the two bombs were detonated by remote control and not timers as earlier believed.

Now, a reminder as well, anyone who knows any information about who these suspects are is being asked to call the FBI. The number is 800-CALL-FBI.

Joining me now is Jeff Beatty, who's a security consultant, former FBI special agent and a form CIA counterterrorism official.

Jeff, what do you make of that? I mean, it was a couple of days ago that a lot of sources were saying it's likely -- they weren't saying certain, but they were saying it was likely it was a timing devices and now, according to Joe Johns' source, they're saying it's some sort of detonation.

What do you make of the discrepancy?

JEFF BEATTY, FORMER CIA COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIAL: Well, I think what led people early on, Anderson, and you and I in fact talked the next day to think that it was more likely to be a timer than anything else was the simplicity of the devices themselves. And so the timer devices are the simplicity device to initiate such an explosion.

You know, you go back and you look at previous acts like Timothy McVeigh's. He even used time fuse. That was a type of timer. And so we inferred from the hastiness of the placement of the explosives that perhaps there was a timer involved, but I think people were careful to say that there was no certainty involved in that, just the evidence indicated that was more likely than a remote control.

COOPER: The idea of two people working together as opposed to one individual, so called lone wolf, does that tell you anything about motive or that they belong to a group or can you infer anything from that?

BEATTY: Well, I think you can infer a few things from it. Certainly two or more people are a group. We don't know that there were only two people involved. There may have been additional people involved. There may be people involved in harboring these folks, et cetera. But a group, yes. And I think that by virtue of the video that we were just looking at -- I was gazing down at it as you were showing it. You know, you see -- and I'm glad you used the word behavior.

The way they were walking, five meters or so between each other, that's kind of a behavioral profiling technique. If I were walking with you down the street some place and we were talking or we're walking side by side, that would not arouse suspicion. But the way these people were walking should arouse suspicion. They're trailing each other. One after the another. And so someone with a bird's eye view of this entire thing would say, you know, that's out of the ordinary, that's unusual.

And that's the type of thing when people do behavioral profiling and profiling has become a bad word, but when you do behavioral profiling, that's the type of thing that we train people to look for and so then law enforcement can kind of focus in on those folks.

COOPER: Jeff, I appreciate you joining us again tonight. Jeff Beatty, thank you.

And here in West and also in Boston tonight, so many people are facing pain. They are facing tremendous challenges ahead. I just want you to know that our thoughts are with everyone who is hurting tonight. We wish you strength and we wish you comfort.

President Obama spoke about the bombing victims and survivors at today's memorial service in Boston. Take a look at some of the sights and the sounds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today our prayers are with the Campbell family of Medford, their daughter Krystle who's always smiling. Those who knew her said that with her red hair and her freckles and her ever eager willingness to speak her mind, she was beautiful, sometimes she'd be a little noisy, and everybody loved her for it.

Our prayers are with the Lu family of China who sent their daughter Lingzu to BU so that she could experience all that the city has to offer. She was a 23-year-old student far from home and in the heartache of her family and friends on both sides of the great ocean, we're reminded of the humanity that we all share. Our prayers are with the Richard family of Dorchester, and our hearts are broken for 8-year-old Martin with his big smile and bright eyes. And we're left with two enduring images of this little boy, forever smiling for his beloved Bruins and forever expressing a wish he made on a blue poster board. "No more hurting people. Peace."

If they sought to intimidate us, to terrorize us, well, it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it.

(APPLAUSE)

Not here in Boston. Not here in Boston.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: People are bruised in Boston but they are not broken and they are bruised here in West but they are not broken and they never will be.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: That's all the time we have for this edition of 360 live from the town of West, Texas. We'll have the latest on the explosion aftermath tomorrow on the program, from here as well and as well as the latest in the search for those two bomb suspects in Washington. Thanks for watching, everybody.

Erin Burnett "OUTFRONT" is next.