Crews searching for seven people after bridge collapse

going to turn back now to the breaking news out of Baltimore this morning the Francis Scott Key bridge part of Interstate 695 and right at the Port of Baltimore partially collapsed overnight it happened when a large cargo ship struck the bridge The Vessel was leaving Baltimore for Sri Lanka we're now learning that authorities are looking for upwards of seven people at least two people were removed from the water one who was in serious condition this morning officials say that sonar detected mult

iple Vehicles submerged in the water and at the time were battling Darkness as they continued their surge adding that it would be a long road ahead let's go straight to NBC News correspondent Ryan Nobles live at the scene Ryan what more can you tell us well M we're getting a a much clear picture of exactly what's happening here in Baltimore from the last time we spoke at 6:00 as the sun is starting to rise and if you can kind of look here behind me our photographer Jim long is going to give you

a better view of this uh just beyond uh that sign where you see the arrow pointing you can actually see part of the span of the bridge that has collapsed in the distance here uh and just to give you an idea of what this would normally look like uh as you're driving up this entrance to the Francis Scott Key bridge on a normal day you'd be able to see uh the bridge in the distance clear as dead you'd be able uh to see cars heading up the ramp onto the bridge that's obviously now all completely gon

e from the skyline and all that is left uh is kind of the the spans of those Bridge uh the spans of the bridge knocked over and and and kind of toppled into the water and so that's what we can see from our Vantage Point uh we can have also seen from aerial uh photographers and from helicopters that are above the scene just how expansive uh this tragedy is this is a bridge that is a mile and a half long a main artery uh through this part of the country that feeds thousands and thousands of commut

ers in the Baltimore and Washington DC area it's now been completely shut down uh now this uh happened at around 1:30 this morning I'm sure you've seen the video many times now this container ship slamming in to the bottom of the bridge and then the bridge completely collapsing it's led to a frantic search and rescue effort here by uh First Responders and officials in Baltimore City and an Arundle County and others uh and they just really don't know the scale of how many people have been impacte

d the the the police chief in a press conference uh about 45 minutes ago described it as a dynamic situation in that they just don't know how many people they are looking for we do know that there was a construction crew that was working on the bridge at the time of the collapse and that some of those construction workers fell into the water in fact my colleague Julia Jester s talked to family members o of those construction workers who were frantically uh standing by at a convenience store at t

he base of the bridge looking for answers and they just were not being told exactly what had happened to their loved ones so far the police or the fire chief has said that they've only been able to rescue two people one of those individuals was taken to a nearby hospital the other refused treatment and was okay uh but they just don't know how many other people could potentially be in the water in part because all of this happened in the middle of the night and when I first arrived here uh around

4:30 4:45 this morning it was Pitch Black there was a full moon but you could hardly see anything uh so when you take that into account and the fact that you're dealing uh with water the idea that you could see and find people that were struggling uh to survive in a situation like this you can understand how difficult that is now the other complicating factor to all of this is the weather it is now starting to be a very nice morning here in Baltimore but it is cold uh the temperature uh somewhe

re in the 30s overnight uh there is a whipping wind that a windshell that just adds to the complications there and then the water itself was in the 40° uh re range so that means chances of survival uh in in a period of time in water like that is not very long so at this point though uh the first response ERS the officials here saying they are still very much in a search and rescue effort as they do everything they can to rescue the people that were part of this tragedy here in Baltimore Joe M ba

ck to you yeah Ryan I'll take it and now we're coming up on nearly six hours since the impact of that ship into the bridge into that cold water as well as you say we just don't know how many people are in the water NBC's Ryan Nobles live in Baltimore Ryan will be back to you thanks so much Tom hey everyone MSNBC has a new and improved app you'll get realtime alerts and Analysis live blogs in-depth essays video highlights and the best 2024 election coverage download the new MSNBC app here's how t

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