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Multiple Buildings Reportedly Damaged; Five-Alarm Fire at Collapsed Building

Aired March 12, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Their understanding is there was no advance warning of this. There is an expectation that people are trapped. There was evidence on the street level when guys were getting there that there may be people in distress. There is no further reporting about that.

There is also an unknown issue of how deep down the building did go as you're pointing out, Commissioner. What the basement structure of these buildings and what the stability of that debris is.

Now, something that you can explain for us. We're seeing a lot of ladders. We know there's heavy response. We hear that a fourth alarm was just called for. Will you explain what that means to firefighters? How much response does that mean and how serious does that make it?

TOM VON ESSEN, FORMER FDNY COMMISSIONER: Well, you probably get, you know, 20 -- 30 people with each alarm, depending on the amount, five or six units -- something like this. They bring in special units too, all the collapse units, all the rescue units, all the squads that are available. As many -- they need a lot more ladder companies on something like this they might normally need because at some point, there's going to be just pulling the stuff out of the way.

I'm sure there is heavy equipment that's on the way there. Some -- and emergency management will coordinate all of that. They've got bulldozers and things like that that are on the way. They may already be there just waiting for a signal from the fire department that they can move in.

Nothing can happen until they stop those heavy streams. Those heavy streams themselves are very dangerous. But until they get a better and environment for searching there are only a few people I would imagine at this point that have any way of getting in there and searching.

CUOMO: The water is creating smoke, obviously that makes visibility difficult as you're pointing out. Also something else we are understanding about the situation, they are putting water. They have an advantage and a disadvantage here. There is only one more building to the south of them.

However, to the north, there is a much bigger apartment structure. And we do believe that the wall, the adjoining wall of the south building has also been breached. And we're watching the hose be put on that wall at all. So now there's another building that they maybe have to deal with there, expanding the zone of coverage that's necessary, Commissioner.

ESSEN: Well that's a -- that makes the situation even worse because those heavy streams can knock a building down. So those guys have to really be careful not to do -- to accelerate any damage that's already done to that building.

And like you mentioned, if there were two buildings in there, one of them was in, you know, tearing it down or doing major, major demolition, and reconstruction, that always weakens the building next to it. They are always worried about the ground coming under, washing away underneath. Now, they've got all of that water.

So this is just a monumental problem and I hope, I'm sure, by all the chiefs there is that there aren't any people in that building because as the time goes by, with all that water and all that smoke and toxic fumes, it's becoming more and more difficult to -- to get to them.

CUOMO: Now Commissioner, we do believe on scene 168 firefighters, 39 units. It does sound like this is certainly reaching about four alarms plus ancillary units. Please stay with me Commissioner.

I want to get to somebody on the scene to try to get us more information. Eric Burse, a student at Columbia University says he got to the scene close as soon after the explosion which is about 35 minutes, 40 minutes ago.

Eric, can you hear us?

ERIC BURSE, WITNESS (via telephone): Yes, I can hear you.

CUOMO: What do you see? What do you hear?

BURSE: Hi I got here about ten minutes after the explosion. I live at 123rd. I felt it all the way there, my living room kind of shook. When I got here I saw tons of people kept pouring out of the apartment buildings here at 116th and Madison Avenue in East Harlem. There are a few groups of people here speaking with the police. I am not sure. They haven't confirmed whether they have a loved one or anyone inside. But there is a group of 50 or so people standing on each side of the street outside of the laundry mats and bodegas here trying to get some information about what's going on.

I am actually looking here at the side. There's more groups of people coming out. Some of them pulling kids, covering their faces with blankets and clothes because of the fumes here. I'm also wearing a mask myself. A lot these people are coming out I'm not sure exactly where they are coming from or if they were in the building the whole time.

CUOMO: Well Eric do you believe that people are coming out of the building that people came out of the building that collapsed or are you're talking about people from the adjacent buildings? BURSE: I'm not sure, sir.

CUOMO: Right.

BURSE: They are kind of just walking down the street. They have closed off the blocks from a point.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: So it's so heavily residential there Eric that people are probably being evacuated. That's probably the situation. It's so heavily residential there. You are seeing people being evacuated trying to deal with it right now. How thick is the smoke on the ground.

BURSE: I can see in front of me about 50 feet up until where the explosion occurred and then it gets pretty thick. Actually a few firefighters actually just walked in with gurneys or I'm not sure if people might be in there. There are about two sets of them walking in.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Right we're seeing it now. We're seeing it now Eric those are stretchers that they can be for people who obviously alive and injured. We're looking now at our first live picture from ground level. And we're seeing the door that's blocking us would be a Con- Edison support vehicle.

Again this area is all piped for gas. An explosion of this magnitude and power that's felt blocks away where the man on the phone with us is a student at Columbia University Eric Burse was to be felt like that. That type of concussive strength does lead to a propelled explosion, the theory being gas or oil or a burner or fuel lines under the road. That's that truck. This is the scene at ground level.

What is most obvious is the smoke. Firefighters are dealing with that. It is coming from the explosion and the efforts to squash that explosion. The water -- the water mixing with fire is going to create the smoke. We understand that but that's how difficult it is at ground level.

To your left on the screen, you are seeing the view from above. Most of the firefighters addressing the fire with hoses right now are from above, because of a few reasons. One, it gives them a better angle to go down. The buildings collapsed. This is not one building it is two buildings that had a shared wall that went down.

And to reset we're looking at Manhattan, 116th and 117th Street on the east side on Manhattan on Park Avenue. Ordinarily one of the broader boulevards. However it's choked at this part of the city by the Metro North elevated railway. On that railway, there is a debris field from what we believe to be an explosion of these joined buildings.

The firefighters are therefore shooting down into this hole trying to put out the fire. There have been injured removed from the building. There is an expectation of more. There is a lot of unknown because it was not clear that there was any advanced warning of this. The firefighters in those elevated buckets are dealing with extreme heat and smoke. You see, that's why they are getting down to stay low and all obviously to try to see what they can.

That's what we're dealing with right now. The situation has been going on for about 40 minutes. If Eric Burse is still with us -- Eric, are you still on the phone?

BURSE: Yes, I'm here.

CUOMO: Is anything changing there as you look on the ground is there any other activity that's relevant?

BURSE: Yes a lot of that -- some fire vehicles are leaving the scene. A few -- a police vehicle just got here with crowd barricades. The crowds here are growing by the minute. These are people that live nearby and also people that have told me that they have loved ones that live nearby and they are not sure which building blew up or if their loved ones are there or somewhere else.

CUOMO: All right Eric, thank you very much. Make sure you stay clear of that area. Listen to the firefighters; the situation far from over because of the adjoining buildings. And there is so much residential buildings there, there is so much residential capacity that they have to be very careful.

The buildings that we understand, two buildings, one joined wall -- multi-use, multi-purpose buildings. Meaning that on the ground level, they were storefronts. One of them was a Christian Spanish church. The one next to it was a piano repair shop. Above them, four or five levels of apartments that went back as far as well could have anywhere between two and four units per floor. Maybe more so a lot of people lived in there.

And now they have been fighting this fire for about 40 minutes. There is an adjoining wall of a building that if you're looking screen left right now at your television, the smaller building, we believe the wall that we shared has been breached. They have been spraying a lot of water on that building. They could be doing it for two reasons, one to make it somewhat insulated from flame and fire and heat or because it is on fire as well which is going to require more evacuations.

On the phone right now, we have someone else on the scene, CNN producer, Rose Arce. Rose if you can hear me what do you see there?

ROSE ARCE, CNN PRODUCER (via telephone): Yes, Chris I am standing 70 feet inside this pile of debris which is just swarming with firefighters walking all over. You can almost see this was a construction zone and they were building a building. There are many tiny bricks and pieces of wood that have collapsed into a pile toward the direction of the train station. In fact there is a significant amount of debris that actually had hit the steel posts that hold up the Metro North commuter railroads that runs alongside these building's wall. You see an enormous amount of smoke pointing to the center of this. There is a portion of the building that is like steel sheets of metal holding it together on one side that stirs to open and that's where you can see a like a plume of smoke where they are trying to with hoses wet the area so that the fire doesn't spread and also to allow the firefighters to pick up and remove these debris, and just painstaking -- like sort of pick up stick. Like picking up these little tiny of pieces of debris and moving them to the side.

CUOMO: OK Rose, make sure that you keep a clear distance there because the situation is still very much ongoing. You can look at the roof of the building that's clearest in view right now. Look how much debris is on top of it. That is evidence of what exploded from those buildings next to it. When this explosion happened, that's part of the debris that was shot off on top of it.

We understand that there are 168 firefighters on the scene. There was a call for a fourth alarm. There are 39 units plus, as former FDNY Commissioner was telling us, a lot of support services as well. What does that mean?

Well you have special equipment and personnel for dealing with digging out of the situation like this. Dealing with removal of people in very traumatic circumstance you have gas at play here, there's natural gas that's fed to a lot of these buildings. We see trucks from that support as well. You have construction going on adjacent to it. That's going to create risks and different requirements for people on the scene.

And this is all developing, again. We're giving you live pictures from the ground here in Manhattan as well as from above. We've been monitoring the situation since it happened for about 40 minutes. We will continue to do so.

Yes, there are injured. The information on that is very premature. We've been talking to surrounding hospitals they say they are treating one person. Maybe more are expected. There's not much on that but these were multipurpose buildings, storefronts on the bottom. One was a church and one was a piano repair shop. And then several floors of apartments above, there could have been multiple apartments on each floor. This happened at about 10:00 in the morning.

Right now, we want to listen to John Deljorno, he is the air reporter for WABC a partner of CNN. Let's listen in to what he sees from above.

OK, John is not talking right now. But he will be. He is a local reporter here at WABC. He is trying to get the scene from above. There may be air restriction on him, we'll keep listening in to try and get you that reporting because it's important to understand this.

You see there are men standing on one of the buildings on the side of where this happened. There are two reasons for that. One is to make sure that the situation is contained on that building. Fire spreads very quickly with these types of materials, especially with ongoing construction. It's also what they call, eyes in the sky -- the ability for firefighters to direct the traffic of firefighting efforts because they are up-wind of this.

Do you see how they are not being covered by the smoke? So they have a clear field of view of what's going on. And they can communicate with the other firefighters that you see in the buckets who are actually being smothered by that smoke and heat. So they really can't see what they are shooting at. And you have to remember those streams of water are incredibly powerful. So you have to be careful not to deal with any glass and other fragile structure. So that's what's going on right now.

Let's get back to our producer, CNN's Rose Arce. She's on the scene anything changing for you there Rose?

ARCE: Yes just about a half minute ago, one of the fire trucks they decided to move into a particular area of this collapse and I say about ten of them have now to these pile of bricks and are now furiously trying to remove debris from a particular central area of where the collapse happened. Also there are some (inaudible) people are here on the scene that have cuts some lines, they have allowed more emergency workers into the section where they are. So we can presume they are trying to work on the gas lines to try to control the gas piles here.

Also they have started to pour water from some overhead water companies, towers that have come in. And they are focusing on the central question of this fire that seems to be continuing. The firefighters are smoldering. It seems to remain active right in the center of this collapse.

CUOMO: That's consistent with what we've been understanding so far. Rose, thank you for the reporting. We'll get back to you and figure out what you can from there. We have another reporter live on the scene, Poppy Harlow, who is trying to get an understanding of how it is developing there. Poppy what's the latest?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes hi, Chris. As you can see, we are standing on the corner of Madison and 116th Street. I'm going to put the phone down for a minute while I talk to you. We are at 116th. We're about a half a block away from where this explosion happened.

What we know right now. When I was on the area earlier, we had not seen any stretchers coming out with anyone injured. We have since seen two people coming out on stretchers, one of them with oxygen and oxygen mask on being taken into ambulances here. There are well over a dozen ambulances here. What we know from FNDY, 138 members of the FDNY are responding. We've got OEM here, the Office of Emergency Management.

Our Susan Candiotti is reporting that on a precautionary basis, they have sent the NYPD bomb squad here. You have many member of the NYPD.

This fire explosion taking place at 116th Street; the smoke is so heavy, the moment we got here we were coughing. It is still pretty difficult to breathe comfortably.

I want to bring in Angelica -- you can come here. She lives in this building -- if we can pan out right here -- which is right on the same block as where the explosion happened here in East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem. What happened? I know you were stuck for a moment.

ANGELICA, WITNESS: I heard a big explosion. I didn't know what was going on so I decided to look out my window. It was a building complex so you could see the other side of the building. It started going into smoke. My neighbors came banging on my door telling me to get out. I guess there was a back way to the building. And I couldn't get out. My door was jammed. Everything off my windowsill fell. And I guess the impact of the explosion jammed the door as well.

HARLOW: How loud was it?

ANGELICA: It was extremely loud. I couldn't even equate it to if I could. It was just so loud that it woke me out of my sleep. That's how loud it was.

HARLOW: I saw a man, it looks like your father was it, came up just a few minutes ago and embraced you.

ANGELICA: Yes, he did because he was so worried, the way that I called him. I was actually almost having an anxiety attack because I was crying and I didn't know what to do. My boss even called the fire people, everybody. And they tried to -- they never sent nobody up. Someone had to sneak into the back to try to open the door for me.

HARLOW: We were also just speaking, Chris, to the woman named Olga who was sobbing in tears. She ran up here, ran blocks and blocks, because her daughter lives on this block. I believe she was staying in your building so I tried to console her to say that you were outside; everyone in this building was all right. But she is still searching for her daughter. That gives you the frantic scene. She tried talking to NYPD, FDNY, she couldn't get any answers. Do you know anyone who lives in the building or possibly multiple buildings that have exploded?

ANGELICA: No, actually no. Whether (inaudible) I was just talking the building that I lived in, I don't know anybody in the other building but I was concerned because we are together as a whole.

HARLOW: A block. All these buildings are connected. How long have you lived here?

ANGELICA: I've lived here for over like five years.

HARLOW: Do you remember, I was told by a local journalist who you were talking to earlier, remember him, who was filming up here as well, that there was a pretty substantial fire here at 116th and Park as well a few years ago. Do you remember that?

ANGELICA: Not in complete because I wasn't around. But I did hear about it. My father and my stepmom were around.

HARLOW: And you don't know what might have caused that? ANGELICA: No.

HARLOW: Because there are questions remaining -- was it caused by a gas line? What could this have been caused by? And we certainly don't know yet. Thank you. I'm glad you are OK. We appreciate it very much.

Chris, I'm going to throw it back to you as we talk to some more people. But we know, the Metro North -- the line in and out of New York City, the train line that runs from here into Grand Central is suspended at this moment in both directions because debris from this explosion landed on the tracks of the Metro North. We'll get back to you as soon as we can.

CUOMO: OK. All right Poppy, thank you very much. Poppy Harlow on the scene in Manhattan where we believe two buildings have collapsed after an explosion, at least partially. Fire fighters are responding right now. Law enforcement officials tell CNN they are not seeing any connection to terror. Right now, this is about the potential for an explosion that could have been because of gas. Gas is what feeds the fuel to a lot of buildings in this area which is 116th, 117th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.

It has been going on now for about 45 minutes. There are at least 130 or more firefighters on the scene. It is a five-alarm fire. That means the same thing in New York as it does wherever you live. It is a massive, massive effort here.

There have been injured. It is a very fluid situation. And again the buildings have collapsed.

Let's bring in Congressman Charlie Rangel. This is his district. He's in Washington D.C. but there is a fire back at home, I'm sure Congressman, you're very concerned about this situation. What's the best information?

REP. CHARLIE RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: Well, I'll tell you it's just as frightening to me and the rest of the delegations as 9/11 as we don't have the facts. We know it is a horrific explosion. And with me, it is only about ten blocks from where I live and was born and was raised. So I know the area.

It is right at the site of La Mateta (ph), which so many people may remember, one of the largest indoor markets that we have had historically --

CUOMO: Right.

RANGEL: -- that was created by Mayor LaGuardia. And so it is totally unbelievable that something of this magnitude could happen in this community.

CUOMO: Well, what we are watching right now, Congressman, I want to put up -- I don't know if you have CNN on down where you are. But I want to put up the Google Streetview of this area because we will see what the buildings were. OK now, we are looking a little bit south of the buildings, OK. You see the Park deli and then there is this apartment building and then there are two. You see the two buildings next to that one that share a wall. Those are the buildings that are believed to have been collapsed. And when you get to see this view, you understand that they probably have all but completely and entirely collapsed because clearly, the scene is all smoke where we now see building.

And I was saying earlier, Congressman, this is very familiar territory to you. But in these area, these buildings are called pre-war, meaning having been built before World War II, meaning that they're very old structures but they are natural gas-fed. And they are called multi-use.

On the ground floor of those two buildings as we monitor live picture, let's also go back to the Google maps so people can understand what happened here. The two buildings, on the bottom, Congressman, one was the Spanish Christian Church which you probably know. I live just a few blocks from these two buildings. I know that church. Hopefully, it was uninhabited at this time in the morning during the week.

Next to it was a piano repair shop which also usually opens up a little bit later, so hopefully, they were vacant. However, On top of those were four or five levels of apartment that could two, four, maybe more units each. And that's going to be the great concern.

We understand it is a five-alarm fire right now and that they are responding with ancillary units as well. The bomb squad is there because of gas and their analysis of what kind of explosions could come after this. As far as you know, Congressman, is the situation getting all of the resources it needs. Are all of the different agencies able to coordinate and get help there?

RANGEL: No question about it. My entire staff is there on the ground. They are working and getting information as to how we can be helpful to the fire and the police department, the Red Cross is there. I may be there right after the votes here in Washington. I was not able to see the television but I know the area as you do. And it is compact with people.

The only news that doesn't sound terrible is that the timing meant that there weren't many people in the building. And I just hope -- I'm so concerned about the people that may have been caught in this tragic event. So there is not much but you can imagine how I feel. It's as though I went to work and found out that my house was on fire and not knowing who was caught in it, what caused it, or whether it expanded (ph), or what's going to happen next.

I don't feel very comfortable now in talking about this tragedy. I am making every effort as soon as the votes finish to get home and see what, if anything, I can do.

CUOMO: Congressman, I appreciate you being on with us. You are right. This is a densely-populated area. There are a lot of families here. We are hoping for the best. We know we have our best on it, the FDNY. Nobody fights fire with more enthusiasm than these guys do. Certainly, we are calling out all the units here.

But I think we do have to reserve judgment until the facts allow us to understand what happened when these buildings. Not just cause but the consequence. We know that only a few people have been taken on the scene. There have been seeing stretchers of people who've been brought out but not many. That could be for many reasons good and bad. And we will reserve judgment on that until we get more information.

But we know at this time, if you are joining us on CNN, is that there has been a major explosion of two buildings in Manhattan, an area on Park Avenue on the east side of Manhattan. The buildings were joined by one wall. They had stores on the bottom; they had multiple players of apartment on top.

We are not sure what the cause could have been at this but by descriptions of a massive explosion that was felt many blocks away, it does sound like it was fueled by natural gas, which is what the primary fuel source is in this area.

Officials tell CNN they do not believe there is cause or any connection to terrorism at this time. They are saying that it is about a gas explosion but again, very early in the situation because the urgency is on stopping the fire. There are buildings on either side that have certainly been damaged. One of them seems to have been breached by fire and is receiving a lot of water attention.

You are looking in the right part of your screen at the elevated railway. That's Metro North. You will see there is debris on it, even though it is some 50 feet in the air. These were six seven-story buildings, again, evidence of an explosion. Cars in the area have had windows blown out. They are covered by debris as well. There's a very significant evacuation going on.

When it comes to the issue of the explosion and why we say it may be natural gas. Con Edison is the company that runs municipal gas in Manhattan. It was called to a possible gas leak right before the explosion -- OK. Now, again, that doesn't tell us everything we need to know but it is highly suggestive of what could cause an explosion like this powerful enough to be felt blocks away and to actually bring down buildings, old buildings, pre-1940s but still buildings made of very solid materials.

We know that there are at least 138 firefighters on the scene. This is a five-alarm fire. That's a term that's familiar to people all around the country in terms of being just about the highest level of urgency you can have.

Now something interesting to note, you will see on your screen, there are firefighters on top of the building next to it. There are two reasons for that. One, to make sure that it doesn't spread to that building. Fire moves up very quickly. Heat rises, as we all know.

The other reason is because of the wind that is coming out of the north which means it is blowing to the south. What that does is it blinds the firefighters in those bucket trucks that you see. It is hard for them to see what they are fighting. And it allows them to have what they call eyes in the sky of communication where the men on that building can tell them where to direct their hoses.

It is going to be very difficult the way this situation is set up for people to fight from ground level because there was an explosion. It is unstable. There is all this water and smoke to deal with, both of which are very dangerous to firefighters on the ground.

New York 1 is obviously the local presence here for television and news. Let's listen in to what they are seeing on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boom. It's like heavy thunder, heavy thunder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you run outside?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I jumped up and put my clothes on and came up the block here, Park Avenue South.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what did you see?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New York City's finest, New York City's bravest at its best, the Fire Department of New York City. A whole lot of people here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were in motion. People running to the explosion?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People running to the explosion. People out here photographing the situation.

The exact location is 116 and 117 Park Avenue South. There is a piano store -- there was a piano store there. It is up above the piano store that the explosion came from. Then in collapsed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. So we're listening to one of the witness on the scene. We now return a live picture of Manhattan. There has been a massive explosion that we believe took down two buildings. It's five- alarm fire now. There is tons of rescue and fire support on scene. The bomb squad as well, we believe not because there is any connection to an explosive device. But it is believed right now by local authorities that it may have been a gas explosion. The bomb squad experienced with handling that kind situation as well.

CNN will take a break and it will come back to continuing coverage of this massive explosion of two buildings in Manhattan. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)