Baltimore Bridge Collapses After Being Struck by Cargo Ship

This is an NBC News special report. Here's Savannah Guthrie.

Good morning, everybody. We're coming on a bit early with breaking news. A horrifying scene in Baltimore this morning. The Francis Scott Key Bridge, struck by a cargo ship and collapsing overnight. You can see the video right there shows the entire structure appearing to break apart. This is a mile and a half bridge over Baltimore Harbor. (00:28) NBC's Tom Costello is right there at the scene for us. And Tom, obviously the concern is anyone who was on the bridge, members on the cargo ship. What can you tell us? What's the latest right now?

That's right. This happened at 1:30 this morning. A Singapore flagged vessel, a cargo ship, struck one of the support structures, one of the pylons if you will, holding up the Francis Scott Key Bridge. And with that, the entire bridge, as you saw on that video, collapsed into the water. Just a stunning scene here. (00:59) And this is a critical artery, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, into and around the Port of Baltimore, which as you know is one of the nation's busiest ports. And so that is going to create a massive logistical headache this morning. The Maryland governor has declared a state of emergency. The transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, in contact, I should say, with the Maryland governor as well. (01:22) Fire department and Coast Guard rescue operations have been ongoing since very early searching for any potential victims who may have gone into the water. And we have heard there may be seven people who went into the water, maybe more. Nobody on the ship is missing, we believe. However, the concern is that there may have been construction workers on top of the bridge when the bridge was struck and that they may have gone into the water. As a result, this is a massive search and rescue operation, and it's being described by some at the Maryland State Police as an ongoing mass casualty incident. (01:58) This is right along the critical I-95 corridor, which of course is the critical artery up and down the East Coast. So if you are planning to drive up and down the East Coast through Baltimore, be aware that you will see traffic affected. The traffic is being told to avoid 695 and go up I-95 and 8 95 instead. (02:18) Nonetheless, as you would expect, we have major, major emergency operations now staging at our location. We are just down the road from this bridge that stretches over the Patapsco River, and it is unlikely of course given the state of that bridge there's going to be any activity of course for some time. Right now it is all about lifesaving rescue operations underway.

Yeah. So the ship is called the Dali. As you said, it's Singapore flagged. As I understand it, it had just departed Baltimore Harbor, presumably loaded with cargo. (02:55) When you look at the video closely, it appears as the cargo ship... It looks very dark as it hits that support structure. One can't speculate, but it looks very, very dark as it hits the support structure. What do you make of that?

Well, not only that, but notice right above it, that appears to be smoke coming from the ship itself. All of this is according to eyewitnesses who've also said they thought they saw smoke coming from the ship. So that clearly is going to be part of this investigation. (03:26) And I must say, all of us who live in the greater Washington Baltimore area and who are very much aware of what a critical bridge the Francis Scott Key Bridge is, are stunned that how a single cargo ship could take this bridge out. How could they have hit the pylon to begin with? And second of all, how is it possible that this bridge was so vulnerable to being taken out by a single cargo vessel?

Agreed. It's hard to imagine.

Regardless, as you know, this is... And this is a critical port. The Port of Baltimore handles just a tremendous amount of volume, shipping volume, for the East Coast. And this morning, all of that is very much kind of hitting the pause button as this ongoing search and rescue operation continues.

It's still dark there and we're looking at some overhead images there, Tom. I don't know if you can see. We seem to have some new images coming in, aerial images. So we have to wait for the sun to come up to see just how extensive this is. This is a mile and a half long bridge. As you mentioned, this is the key bridge in the Baltimore Harbor, but it's part of 695, I-695, a heavily trafficked area as you know. (04:34) Can you tell whether... I mean, you see sort of a portion of the bridge appearing to still standing leading up to... I mean, is it fair to say, do you have any insight from your vantage point, is the entire bridge collapsed or is this a partial bridge collapse?

Savannah, I'm going to... Here's the thing, you have as good if not better view than I do because I'm about a mile down the road and we can't of course go over that road because it goes right into the bridge. But these aerial shots that we're looking at really provide us the best perspective. And to me, this looks like for all intent and purposes a total bridge collapse there. Maybe just a tiny piece of it is still standing. But this is just an unbelievable series of events that have brought this bridge down here in Baltimore.

Well, there's, as you said, up to 20 people potentially still missing. The shipping company says that all of its cargo ship employees are accounted for. That is good news. There are reports of construction workers who were on the bridge at the time and who may be missing in the water. (05:40) And talk about conditions there. You're standing, it is right there, it is very, very cold. We understand the water there of the Patapsco River to be about 48 degrees Fahrenheit, which of course brings up concerns of hypothermia very, very quickly.

And this happened at 1:30 in the morning. So if anybody had gone into that water, you'd be very concerned about survivability at this point. It's about 35 degrees out here out on the land, and we have a bit of a wind blowing here. (06:11) Some family members, I'm told, some family members of construction workers had been gathered at a nearby gas station just down the road waiting for any word at all about whether their loved ones were safe. But we don't have any word on that at this point.