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CNN Live Event/Special
Mexican Navy Training Ship Strikes Brooklyn Bridge; FBI: Fertility Clinic Blast "International Act Of Terrorism"; St. Louis, Missouri Residents Assessing Damage From Massive Storms. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired May 17, 2025 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[23:00:46]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
BEN HUNTE, CNN HOST: Hello, you're watching CNN. I'm Ben Hunte.
We're beginning with breaking news out of New York. Authorities say a Mexican Navy training ship has struck the bottom of Brooklyn Bridge. The mayor says at least 19 people were injured, four of them seriously.
Police say the sailboat hit the bridge around 8:26 pm local time. It was carrying 277 passengers. Video on social media shows the ship's mast hitting the underside of the bridge and breaking as the vessel passes through. New York emergency officials said they're responding to the incident, adding that the situation is developing.
All lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge were briefly closed in both directions after the incident, but they have now reopened. The Mexican Navy shared a post on X, writing, "The status of the personnel and material is under review by naval and local authorities who are providing support."
Juliette Kayyem, CNN Senior National Security Analyst, is joining me now from Jamestown, Rhode Island. Let's just get back into this. So, what is the latest that we just learned from this press conference? Has anything else happened?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, we learned a few things. I mean, the first, most importantly, is that there's no fatalities yet, although there are several sort of bad injuries and people are being taken care of, and that none of those injuries occurred in the water, that this was essentially injuries that occurred on the boat, so there were no sort of rescues or drownings or anything like that.
So -- so, those people will be taken care of, and the most important thing is notifying their families and family unification, since many of these people are likely Mexican nationals, given where the boat is from. The second, and this is important, is that there's no structural damage to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Look, New York has to move on. It was closed to assess whether there was any structural damage. You could tell from the pictures that this was probably the mass just hitting the boat. It wasn't going to -- excuse me, the bridge. It wasn't going to impact the bridge too greatly.
The third is, why does this happen? That's what the investigation is going to show, as we were talking earlier, and I was surmising on the river's currents, it looks like that was the problem, and that river, the East River, is a very sort of treacherous river in terms of currents, so the combination of the boat losing its capacity, we don't know for how long, and the currents is probably the best and most likely explanation as compared to anything nefarious or internationally related. It was just a bad accident.
HUNTE: I was having a scroll on the socials, just trying to understand what the general reaction to this is. The biggest question that people are asking is, how could this have happened? There were so many people watching it occur, seemingly in slow motion and filming it for socials. How could this have happened?
KAYYEM: A boat is a very, very difficult thing to stop, and if they lost power on the boat, it would be almost impossible to turn it around, and so I have the same phenomenon where you're sort of looking at this like slow-motion disaster happening and you're trying to stop it. It would be very hard to do. That was a big boat, and with the currents pushing it may be under parts of the bridge that were not as elevated as sort of the middle part, that's why you would have this happen.
It's a very -- it's a very random event and a bad series of coincidences, but the boat looked like it at other parts of the bridge, and it was intending on clearing the bridge. It was just where it was going under the bridge without -- without capacity to steer. That is going to happen.
HUNTE: What sort of challenges are emergency services going through at the scene? We're seeing these pictures here. There's obviously a lot that's going to be going on there. What are they dealing with?
KAYYEM: Yeah. So, I mean, the -- so, we already know some things, which is at least everyone's accounted for, so the worst part, like are you looking for people in the water at nighttime? That's not happening, so we can be grateful for that.
The second is sort of identification and family notification of the people who are most seriously injured. We have almost 20 in the hospital. It is likely that their families, at least in some instances or most instances, are in Mexico, so -- so that's a big deal.
[23:05:09]
It's important to treat the families with respect, so you want to spend some time trying to notify the families. It's why the ambassador was there, and the mayor was talking about that cooperation. And then the third hardest part, I'd say, is just going to be the
investigation. What exactly happened? They're going to investigate the boat. Had it been in trouble before? What did the pilot do? Were there any maydays? Why didn't -- if he knew he was going into the bridge, why didn't he bring those men down from the mast? Those kinds of questions to determine whether there's any legal liability for the -- for the company.
HUNTE: What sort of things are in place for an incident like this to not occur?
KAYYEM: Yeah, that's such a great question. There's a lot of things, and it looks like some things didn't happen. I mean, for one, it's a heavily regulated river passageway because it's dense and it's near a city, and those bridges are utilized heavily by automobiles and trucks.
So, you have basically harbormasters who are regulating the boats that are coming in and out that are going under the bridges. Look, there's lots of activity on the river. If you don't go under the bridge, it tends to be okay. For a boat of that size, it would have been certified. It would have been reviewed by a harbormaster. We know that all the passengers were known, and we know that it was going to Iceland.
So, it's not like some random boat. This is a heavily regulated commercial boat that is providing services to passengers. So, that whole regulatory system exists to try to minimize harm, and then when there is a breakdown, I am, you know, Mayday should have been called. I am curious what the Coast Guard was notified of. Was there time to stop the boat if a rescue had been asked for? That time period is something that we're going to review because if there was time, you could have stopped this very dramatic accident from happening.
HUNTE: I'm seeing on social media that people are asking how the bridge has reopened so quickly, considering that it's late on a weekend. Like, were there people actually working to be able to make the assessment to open this that quickly, or is it just that New York kind of needs that bridge to be operated as quickly as possible?
KAYYEM: Yeah. That's 24/7 in New York. Those bridges and tunnels, it doesn't matter what, you know, as they say in the city, it does not matter what time of day. The emergency management and critical infrastructure protections are in place nonstop because the river is constantly moving, the bridges constantly have traffic.
So, once that happened, there's a whole mechanism through an incident command in which the critical infrastructure review, the secretary and the heads of transportation would -- would be able to deploy assessment teams almost immediately.
It looks really bad for the boat, but even when I was looking at it online and again -- again on air, it does look like the damage to the Brooklyn Bridge thankfully was probably more cosmetic, and they went there to make sure that no pieces were missing. They've got everything, right? They've got drone capacity, they have videos, they have cameras, they have personnel who are checking to make sure that there was no structural damage.
Given the number -- honestly, given the number of videos there are of it, they are able to tell whether anything fell off the bridge that they should be worried about, and clearly they determined that it hadn't.
HUNTE: I wonder if you can just school me a bit on what an investigation actually looks like into this and how long that's going to take. I know with plane accidents, you see them potentially taking years after the incident to get to the bottom of what actually occurred. What's this going to be involving?
KAYYEM: This one will probably be faster. It's just one boat, right? I mean, it is in this -- and the bridge didn't come down, right? And there's no fatality. So, in this way, there's not a whole bunch of sort of legal oversight of it. So, I do -- I think the primary focus of an investigation is going to be the ship. And it's just -- what was the company that owned it? How was it maintained? Had there been problems before?
And then, you get to the captain, which was, you know, what was his condition? You just have to ask that. You know, was he healthy? Was he -- was he -- you're often asked, had he been drinking? Anything. We don't know, it's just these are the questions that one asks. What's his history?
And then the intersection of when the boat was clearly under stress, when the ship was clearly under stress and the captain knows it, what happened in those moments? We want to know that just so that we can determine whether there should be changes to protocols, whether certain boats should not be allowed under the bridges and what in fact happened.
[23:10:16]
But again, it wasn't just that the ship, lots of ships lose their power. The currents in the river are historically almost impossible to navigate, even if you lose your -- your power. And I think that's what we saw. It's just -- it's a very treacherous river.
HUNTE: I just wonder if you can just talk me through how common incidents like this are. Obviously recovering this is breaking news and we're putting our full effort into it, but how common are things like this occurring in major cities like New York?
KAYYEM: There's always -- I mean, there's always accidents between stationary things and boats all the time. I used to work a lot with the Coast Guard and it's like, I mean, that's what they do, right? I mean, this is the safety and security of our -- of our waterways. What you rarely get, fortunately, is large vessels with large critical infrastructure. That's what you've got today. And it was just sort of fortunate that it was the mass that hit and not any structural part of either the boat or the Brooklyn Bridge.
They're rarer for a variety of reasons. As I said, they are, you know, heavily regulated navigation ways that are in cities like New York City. The pilots of these ships, the captains of these ships tend to be higher. You're not new, right? They tend to be more sophisticated, better trained. This was, our understanding is it was going to Iceland. That is a serious ship captain who can be able to do that in such a large boat.
And we need to -- we need to verify that because I do think the mayor wasn't -- I think he wasn't sure about that. That's a lot of people to take overnight. The boat didn't look like it could -- that that many people could sleep on it. So, we'll figure out where it was going. And then you sort of had that combination tonight of sort of a large ship and the critical infrastructure.
Lots of bad things are happening in our waterways. I mean, in terms of accidents, in terms of drownings, but they tend not to -- one, they tend not to be at the scale. And two, they do not often happen on a Saturday night in, you know -- you know, in New York City with everyone with a camera. And that's essentially, you know, why there's so many videos.
HUNTE: OK, well, Juliette, for now, thank you so much for joining me. That's Juliette Kayyem. We're going to go to a break. We'll be back very, very soon.
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[23:16:00]
HUNTE: We're following breaking news out of New York. Authorities say a Mexican Navy training ship has struck the Brooklyn Bridge. The mayor says at least 19 people were injured, four of them seriously. Police say the sailboat was carrying 277 passengers when it hit the bridge just a short time ago. All lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge were briefly closed in both directions after the incident. But they have now reopened. And there is no structural damage to the bridge according to authorities.
CNN's Mark Morales is joining me live from New York with more. Mark, the big question that everyone's asking is how could this have happened? So, I'm going to ask you, how could this have happened?
MARK MORALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this press conference really shed a lot of light on this because when this first starts happening, you start saying to yourself just that very question, how -- how can this happen? But knowing that it was a mechanical issue that really triggered this whole thing to start happening, that's a very big deal because automatically you rule out anything nefarious, anything criminal, which with New York's history and as a major city, that's a very big deal.
So, that notion that there was a mechanical issue, that there was something that was wrong with the boat itself really goes a long way to not only tell us exactly how this happened, but to also calm nerves, right?
Because if you're looking at this response, I'm in lower Manhattan right now. When you look at this response, it is emergency service vehicles everywhere. You're seeing red and blue flashing lights, police vehicles, fire department vehicles, emergency responding vehicles. It's sirens, it's congested, and there's still a lot of nightlife going on in the area, but this is a big deal because you don't want to assume that it could be anything worse than it actually is. So, the fact that it crashed into the bridge is bad in and of itself.
HUNTE: What kind of things are in place to stop something like this happening?
MORALES: Right, well, there's always going to be some sort of measures, and a lot of this goes back to regulations, right? It's city officials, it's people making sure that everybody knows the rules of the road. The same way that everybody needs a driver's license to drive down the road, it's the same thing to use the waterway, especially a waterway underneath something as important as a landmark as the Brooklyn Bridge.
So, in terms of that, it's education. It's knowing what's going on. It's knowing who's allowed to be there, and more importantly, what vessels are allowed to ride underneath the bridge because that's an important deal too.
HUNTE: We're seeing a lot of videos on social media from people that were recording the incident at the time. I just wonder, what is going on now? Are people still hanging around just looking at the ship?
MORALES: Right, well, what you're having now is the aftermath of the whole thing, right? It's the emergency response of the presence that you have from NYPD, the FDNY, emergency services, just to get into the area. And remarkably, amidst that, it's still Saturday night in New York City in nice weather.
So, you've got people that are going out. You've got people that are bouncing around from bars to restaurants. And amidst all this, in the backdrop, is just a bunch of blue and orange flashing lights acting as the backdrop to this Saturday night and this incident that, frankly, could have been a lot worse than it is right now.
HUNTE: Have we heard from anyone that was actually on that boat yet? Because there were a lot of people that were on it.
[23:20:01]
MORALES: I don't think we have yet. As we know, there was a lot of people on this boat, a lot of people that could help fill in those gaps too.
HUNTE: OK, I think we've -- there we go. We've got you back. We've got you back, Mark. Sorry, we just lost you for a bit there.
MORALES: Oh, yes. And I'm sorry about that. Investigators are talking to everybody. And that's part of what this after-action report is right now. It's just going through, talking to everybody on this boat, getting a sense as to what happened and how it happened. So, that's going to be a big thing going forward. So, we'll hear from them, and certainly investigators will hear from them.
HUNTE: OK, well, Mark, I'm sure we're not done with you yet, so please stick around for me. But for now, we appreciate it. Thank you for being with me.
Let's keep on going. We're joined by David Soucie, a former FAA Safety Inspector and a CNN Safety Analyst.
David, you there? You got me? Yes, you're there. Thank you. I know everything's happening right now. It's breaking news. We're going through it. I just wonder if you could just tell us --
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HUNTE: Oh, yeah. Well, what are you seeing? Tell us about it.
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Oh, are you there? Sorry.
HUNTE: Yes, you are -- you are live with me, Ben Hunte, on CNN.
SOUCIE: Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry about that.
HUNTE: You're all good. You're all good.
SOUCIE: Yeah, this is fascinating.
HUNTE: Yes. Tell me what you're seeing.
SOUCIE: I'm watching all the videos about it. It looks to me like it was going backwards, like it had lost power and was being dragged down the river backwards, and it nearly took out the pier as it went down through there. I'm surprised more people weren't injured on this. It definitely is some damage there. I know that they've reopened the bridge.
They closed down traffic in both directions at first, and so they must have had inspectors go out and make sure that the bridge was safe to -- to reopen the bridge again, but it looks like at this time they -- they still don't know what had happened exactly, but it looks a lot like, to me, that they lost power, and then the -- the procedure for that when you lose power on the river is to drop anchor.
And so even though you drop anchor, it takes quite a bit, about a quarter of a mile at least, to get that anchor to get into the water and set in the water before the chain comes out and allows you to stop the ship. So, it stopped the ship just before it really crashed hard into the pier.
So, it looks like they did a good job of minimizing the damages, but it's still something that needs to be looked at closely as to why that ship had lost power and they didn't drop anchor sooner. I think that should have happened almost immediately if they lost power.
HUNTE: Well, how much notice would they have had? How long would they have known that something wasn't working, do you think, for this to occur? SOUCIE: Well, yeah, as soon as those engines, as soon as you lose power on those engines, it is a sailboat, but that's still at the same time, it has plenty of power to keep driving. And so at the point that they lose those engines almost immediately, they should not try to restart the engines and not try to get things going and figure out what's going on with the engines, which is the natural instinct. That's the innate nature to try to fix it as it's going.
But the emergency procedure immediately after that is to drop anchor immediately and I'm not saying they didn't. In the river, it's difficult because the fact that you're going back down against that river current and so you're being pushed and the anchor has to find set and then rock back and set into the ground to get a good solid bite to get that ship stopped.
But that would be the procedure and it looks like it was just in time because that would have come back and hit that. You can see it pulls the ship a little bit away from the pier, which is where it would have gone and had the anchor finally grabbed hold, which it looked like it did and then pulled it a little bit away from that pier, so.
HUNTE: You mentioned just there that you expected to see more injuries. What would those injuries have been caused by? I mean, I was very surprised from that press conference that people didn't fall into the water. There were no water-based injuries. So, what else could have happened?
SOUCIE: Yeah, well, what I was thinking more along the lines is if you saw the video of people standing on the pier taking videos and watching things trying to figure out what's going on, they don't realize that this ship is deadly. It's coming right at them and it looks like it's going slowly because of its size, but the fact is if it had taken that pier out, it would have taken everybody and there was at least 100 people on that pier sitting there with their videos and their cameras on not thinking properly about getting out of the way, getting off that pier. Had it gone into the pier and taken that pier out, we would have had injuries and fatalities from the people on that pier.
HUNTE: Right. And just tell me about the investigation that's going to take place after this. What does that look like?
SOUCIE: Well, the first investigation that's going to happen is the Transportation Safety Board is going to be involved and they're going to get people out there. They probably have already people out there tonight, but they'll have out there tomorrow as well. The fact that it's a Mexican registry ship is going to complicate things a little bit, but not much, because of the fact that it's operating in U.S. waters.
[23:25:05]
So, NTSB will still lead the investigation, but they'll have the -- the other countries involved in not only where it came from or where it was registered, but where it was manufactured. The engine manufacturers will be part of it. They'll start looking at what caused the failure of the engines. If that is indeed what happened, it looks to me like it did. but that's where I would look at first.
The next thing that you want to do is you'll investigate the captains to make sure that everyone that was on board had the right reasons to be there and that they were qualified for it.
HUNTE: For those that are just joining us that I see in these pictures here, I wonder if we could just recap why something like this has happened or what you presume may have happened there. We saw a lot of video on social media, a lot of clips are going viral at the moment and people are quite shocked that this amount of people were just recording this incident that seemed to almost occur in slow motion. But what are you telling us?
SOUCIE: Well, the fact that it looks like it's slow, it's a huge, huge ship and it doesn't take a lot of speed. The inertia is what you have to worry about with a ship of this size. And as it's moving towards that pier, people are standing there videoing, they don't really realize the danger that they're in right at that point, because at this point, it appears that the ship had lost power and was drifting down river and had dropped anchor, but the anchor takes a long time to get set because you have to wait for it to hit the bottom and then it has to rock, the chain has to pull the anchor down, then it has to find a good set in the bottom, in the dirt of the river. And then at that point, it will start slowing and dragging the ship into the right direction.
Before that happened, it was very close because it did impact that pier, but had it gone straight where it was, if the anchor hadn't been placed, that ship would have continued to go straight towards that pier and taken that pier out. There were hundreds of people on that pier, you can see, and they're all standing there taking videos and you don't hear anybody saying, oh my gosh, we have to get out of the way.
But in fact, that's what they should have been doing at the time and it was just pure luck that the ship veered to the way that it did and kind of came out to the side of that pier. So, it was a very dangerous situation for those people on that pier.
HUNTE: OK, well, David, we're going to keep covering this. Please don't go anywhere. I'm sure we're going to be speaking to you again in just a moment. And there's much more ahead on our breaking news.
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[23:30:13]
HUNTE: Welcome back, authorities say a Mexican Navy training ship has struck the bottom of the Brooklyn Bridge. The New York Mayor says 19 people were injured, four of them seriously. The Mexican Navy says 22 people in all were injured, 19 taken to hospital.
Video posted on social media shows the ship's mast running into the bridge. The Mexican Navy shared a post on X writing, quote, "The status of the personnel and material is under review by naval and local authorities who are providing support." A Mexican Navy spokesperson says the ship was on an annual training cruise during the time of the incident.
CNN's Mark Morales joins us live from New York with more. Mark, can you just tell us what you're seeing at the scene at the moment?
MORALES: Right, well, you're getting a really interesting juxtaposition -- excuse me, what happens here on a Saturday night? You have people that are out here enjoying their Saturday night, but at the same time, you have emergency services vehicles, you have NYPD vehicles, FDNY vehicles, you have first responders. You're seeing the blue and red lights blaring as people are walking through. And if you look over my shoulder, you'll see the bridge that we've been talking about, the one that has been at the center of this incident in the background there.
And as we heard not too long ago from the mayor of New York City in this briefing that they gave some really critical pieces of information, including 19 that are injured, four of which are considered serious.
Now, as these numbers are going through, it's a preliminary investigation. So, these numbers are always going to be fluid. So, what we're learning now is that, as we've said, it's 19 that are hurt, four that are injured. And the start of it all was this mechanical issue that prompt that actually got this ship to glide into the bottom of the bridge. And that's what caused all this mayhem.
And this is now starting going to start sparking the second half of this incident, which is really investigators going through and figuring out exactly what led to the events that we had here.
HUNTE: Yeah, and let's talk a bit more about what did actually lead to those events. I mean, from looking at the video on social media, people are really shocked that there were this many people just stood recording the ship as it did go into the bridge. How could this have happened?
MORALES: Right, and as they said at this briefing not too long ago, they highlighted this mechanical issue. Now, what led to that mechanical issue is something that investigators are really going to dig into. Even the police commissioner saying that the NTSB is going to be investigating this issue. You're going to have a lot of investigative agencies. They're going to be taking a fine-tooth comb to figure out exactly what led to this issue here. And with this mechanical issue, they're going to dig deep. What was it that failed? How did it fail? Why did it fail there? They're going to look into every detail about this.
Because, as you know, the Brooklyn Bridge is a very, very important piece of history that's here in New York City. It's a big landmark. It's a big tourist attraction. There's a lot of people here. And with everything that's going on, this is something that federal investigators, law enforcement here in New York, everybody's going to be taking a look at to see how this happened.
HUNTE: And meanwhile, I just wonder if you've spoken to anyone who's at the scene at the moment who may be recorded that incident and posted that footage on social media. Has anyone spoken about like shock at what they saw and how they're dealing with it now?
MORALES: We haven't seen any of that yet. We haven't spoken to anybody who has seen this firsthand. But you mentioned this video that that we've all been seeing. It's -- it's shocking in and of itself. And as it's happening, you know, you know that there are people that are actually watching this happen, watching this ship glide into the Brooklyn Bridge. And just as we were talking not too long ago, we're probably saying to themselves that shouldn't be that bridge shouldn't be there.
So, you know, that there are people that saw this happening who are who are actually going to be sought after by investigators. Investigators usually want to talk to everybody, everybody that saw it from -- from any different angle. If anybody recorded the incident, they're going to want to talk to everybody.
HUNTE: OK, well, Mark, stay right there. I'm going to be speaking to you again in just a few moments. Thank you, Mark Morales, live in New York for us. Appreciate it.
OK, there is much more ahead on our breaking news. Stay with us here on CNN.
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[23:37:32]
HUNTE: Welcome back. Let's have a quick recap of our breaking news. A Mexican Navy training ship has struck a pillar of the Brooklyn Bridge. New York's mayor says at least 19 people were injured. They say there is no structural damage to the bridge, which has been reopened to traffic. A Mexican Navy spokesperson says the ship was on an annual training cruise during the time of the incident.
Officials are trying to understand what happened and the extent of the damage. You can see both masts of the tall ship hit the deck of the bridge. This is a new angle on the incident. All lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge were briefly closed in both directions after the incident, but they have now reopened. Officials say there's no structural damage to the bridge.
Well, for more analysis, let's dig a bit deeper. We're joined from New York by CNN's Chief Media Analyst, Brian Stelter. Brian, thank you for being with me. We were seeing so many videos on social media as this happened earlier. Can you just talk us through some of the reactions that we're seeing now?
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I think one of the ones that you just showed -- I think one of the angles you just showed is from the Manhattan side. We've mostly been seeing this from the Brooklyn side, from tourists and from residents who were near the Brooklyn Bridge underneath it. You know, this was happening at magic hour. It's like kind of the best time of day, right? 8:20, 8:30 p.m. The sun had just set in New York City. The sky was gorgeous.
People were out photographing it by the hundreds, by the thousands. We've seen a lot of angles from Brooklyn, but there's also these angles from Manhattan from people who live in high rises on the other side of the river. And the fact that they were able to have time to take out their phones and start recording videos before this crash occurred, it speaks to how this was a little bit of a slow-motion, you know, situation, even though this boat was going too quickly and needed help from that tug and from other support.
You know, this was happening slowly enough that people were able to get so many different angles of this, and that is going to help the investigators as they sort through dozens of different angles of video footage of the crash. But it is striking to see it from the Manhattan point of view because you see traffic on the bridge. You see red headlights. Maybe we can pull that video back up. That speaks to how many cars were on the bridge.
Now, thankfully, there was no damage to the bridge itself, and all those cars were just fine. But, you know, people who come to New York from far and near love to go across the Brooklyn Bridge, love to walk it or drive over 100,000 cars a day. So, the idea that this was a very crowded bridge at this beautiful time of the evening, so many people out and about on what turned out to be a great weather day in New York City, that's why we have so many angles, and it's also why we're lucky there weren't more injuries here.
[23:40:06]
HUNTE: Well, let's talk a bit more about those angles because you are seeing this crash caught from so many different angles, from the front, from the side, from the high rise. What does that tell us about this? You just touched on it there, but also, what are the investigators going to do with this footage?
STELTER: I think it's because it was so obvious something was out of proportion here. Like, you know, specifically, the boat was clearly too tall. This was way too high in the air. It's not something you would normally see on the East River in Lower Manhattan. You normally see ferry boats, you see party boats, and the occasional kind of, you know, cargo boat that's very low. You would never see something this high.
So, I think whether you're a resident or even maybe a tourist, you see it, you immediately know something is wrong. We know that this boat was leaving, this Mexican training boat was leaving from the other side of the river, the South Street Seaport, Pier 17. It's very close.
It's basically, you know, it's the other side of a stadium length away, you know. You take a one-minute, two-minute ferry ride to go across the river in that spot. So, the boat was leaving that area, clearly, as we've seen in the footage, going backward as something went wrong that your other guests have talked about.
It wasn't intending to go in that direction up the East River. It was intending to go out toward the Atlantic Ocean. But because that's pretty tight quarters there, it's a relatively small space to maneuver. And as I said, there's lots of other boats out there at that time of night. There were many different things that could have gone wrong. And clearly, there were so many eyewitnesses who sensed this wasn't right. This was not supposed to be this way.
And I think, Ben, the most incredible videos are the ones of some of these sailors hanging, dangling off some of the upper masts. I hope I'm getting my ship terminology correct. But some of these sailors having to hold on, some eyewitnesses saying they had to hold on for 10, 15 minutes before those sailors were able to get down in some cases.
HUNTE: That really surprised me as well, because looking at that on social media, I think a lot of people didn't realize what they were seeing. But there were individuals on those masts, and I think in a couple of them, you literally see the bodies falling, right? I mean, were you shocked to see this kind of footage shared so widely with all sorts of reactions underneath it? It's like people didn't realize the actual human impact that this could have been having and has had.
STELTER: Precisely. Some of the first reactions were referring to a pirate boat. And if you look at it, you know, if you look at this and take it out of the context of what we now know about the people that are injured, then it does in some ways look like this really unique vessel, another reason to get out your camera phone, I guess, almost looks like a pirate boat.
It almost looked like the sailors were putting on a show because in some ways they were. They were saying goodbye to New York City. They were on their way on this huge, this massive voyage. You know, Mexico, the Navy refers to this boat as one of their iconic vessels.
And so, in some ways, these sailors, these cadets were there to put on a show to try to impress the crowds on both sides of the river. And of course, you know, they then had to scramble when this started to go wrong. I hope we can find out more, you know, in the hours to come about those sailors and what happened to them because apparently some of them did fall into the water and others were able to be rescued.
HUNTE: Are you surprised we haven't heard from some of those 277 individuals that were on that ship? I mean, the fact that this has happened and this has caught international attention, you would have thought someone would have posted a little something, said something about what's going on right now.
STELTER: We'll get there. You know, of course, these are -- these are tourists. You know, these are folks, you know, from Mexico, from the Mexican Navy who have been making stops along the way on this voyage. You know, maybe there's a little bit of a communications barrier, right? But you're right. It will be very interesting to hear from those folks. I think we've seen almost every other angle except for the people who were actually on the ship when this crash happened.
And, you know, I think another outstanding question, Ben, is about Brooklyn Bridge Park. It's about that area where this ship did make an impact. We'll see how much of an impact it actually made probably in the morning when -- when folks are able to get down there.
HUNTE: OK, Brian Stelter. Thank you so much for joining me. Stay where you are. I'm sure we're going to be coming back to you for now. Appreciate it. Thank you.
OK, we're going to go to Mary Schiavo. Hopefully, she's with me now. Let's have a chat with Mary.
Mary, can you hear me?
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: I can. I can hear you just fine.
HUNTE: Hello? Thank you for joining me. Appreciate it.
SCHIAVO: Thank you.
HUNTE: So we're seeing huge amounts of reaction on social media about this incident. The main question people are asking is, how could this have happened? You've got hundreds of people recording this incident, posted about it on social media. They knew what was going to be happening to this ship before it hit the bridge. How could this have happened?
SCHIAVO: Well, they have the tall ship regattas in many places in the United States, and having the sailors stand on the yard arms, on the, you know, cross members of the sails. I mean, this is a -- you know, it's a beautiful sight, and it's a common sight. So it happens at many different locations.
Now, it's got to come down to, you know, what did they know about the waters? What was told to them by the event organizers? But the responsibility does lie with the ship to know the clearances, to know the waters, the depths of the waters.
[23:45:11]
And often, events like this do require pilot boats or do require local escorts. You know, a pilot boat, a tug, et cetera. It would just depend upon how this particular event was organized, if it was an event, or if this ship was sailing in for something specific to this ship. But these kinds of events go on at many ports in America. They're quite a sight to see, but again, there's a lot of planning that goes into it, and it is always up to the ship captain, but it would also, there would be a lot of information from the event organizers as well.
And it is amazing because of the people standing on the yard arms. You would have thought they would have seen the bridge, and if they'd been accustomed to this and know their clearances, you have to know your boat's own, your ship's own clearance. So, that is surprising, but it's a thrilling event, and it could be they got wrapped up in the moment.
HUNTE: Yes. What can you tell us about the -- how surprised you were at the number of injuries that we've seen? I mean, we're currently reporting that at least 19 people were injured of 277. Would you have expected to see more from something like this?
SCHIAVO: Well, yes, and what is surprising for people who haven't actually seen this site, the number of people that can stand on the yard arms is really quite impressive and amazing, and it's, you know, it wouldn't be something that I would want to do, but it certainly takes a lot of skill to do this, and you would think seeing the mass crumple after hitting the bridge, yes, I mean, I was -- you know, I gasped. I thought there would be a lot of people hurt and possibly perish from this impact, and so if -- if the number is 19, it's very fortunate that that's all that it was because those -- those mass snapped like toothpicks.
The Brooklyn Bridge is -- you know, I was there for its 100th birthday, so it's, you know, it's, you know, like 140 years old or something like that, and it's quite a structure, and it was reinforced and redone just, you know, maybe a couple decades ago, so hopefully the bridge is OK as well, but they will have to inspect it. That's the law. It'll be -- it'll be shut down and inspected.
HUNTE: Well, let's talk about that because somebody's reaction on social media was, how can Eric Adams open this bridge again so quickly after this has happened on a weekend evening where people have presumed there couldn't be that many people that would be ready to jump to analyze what is actually going on with this bridge, so are you surprised that this has opened so quickly?
SCHIAVO: Yes.
HUNTE: And -- I mean, you just said there needs to be testing to make sure this bridge is still safe, right?
SCHIAVO: I am surprised because just a couple years ago in the U.S. we had a major disaster in the port of Baltimore when a ship was hit, and -- or when a bridge was hit by a ship, and of course that bridge came down and people did perish, and I mean, it does take a lot to inspect a bridge, particularly one of this age, but again, the Brooklyn Bridge was completely redone and reinforced, you know, a number of years ago, so it's certainly not standing as it was 100 plus years ago, so the fact that they had people able to inspect, they had to have inspected it.
There's no way they could reopen it sensibly without having the inspections done. So, obviously they must have had people on call, and I would not anticipate that they opened that bridge without inspecting it. It just does not make sense. If -- if -- so, they had to have inspected.
HUNTE: What about the actual waterway there, the fact that this river's there, what could people, what -- were you expecting that this was going to be closed to boats, to other ships? What's going on now?
SCHIAVO: Well, yes, but of course, you know, both the ports of New York and the Coast Guard, I mean, there are many different kinds of jurisdictions and people to help. They will close those waterways until they can recover, make sure they've got everyone rescued, done any recovery that they have to do, you know, get all the various, you know, parts of the boat, et cetera.
So, I would anticipate that law enforcement and the Harbor Patrol, the Coast Guard, et cetera, has closed that area until they can complete an investigation because there will be an investigation as is required by law in the United States, and they have a complete jurisdiction over any accident area, so the law gives them that power and I assume they used it. This is -- you know, could be a tragedy where people are harmed or lost. So, they'll take this investigation very seriously.
[23:50:07]
HUNTE: Yes, and we're still waiting to hear exactly how people have been injured and the extent of those injuries as well. Mary Schiavo, thank you so much for joining me, we appreciate it, and hopefully speak to you again soon.
SCHIAVO: Thank you.
HUNTE: We want to bring you up to date with other news that we're following. A source tells CNN that police believe the person responsible for an explosion that damaged a Southern California fertility clinic was killed in the blast. The FBI sent bomb technicians to the site in Palm Springs shortly after a car explosion rocked the quiet neighborhood and seriously damaged the fertility clinic. The Bureau believes it was a deliberate act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AKIL DAVIS, FBI ASSISTANCE DIRECTOR AT LOS ANGELES FIELD OFFICE: Make no mistake, this is an intentional act of terrorism. The FBI is investigating it as such. Our Joint Terrorism Task Force is here working in lockstep with the Palm Springs Police Department, the ATF, and a whole host of agencies that I've already mentioned. If anyone has information regarding this incident, I urge them to call 1-800- CALL-FBI for any tips that might assist us in our investigation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: The doctor who runs the clinic told the "Associated Press" the office space was damaged, but the IVF lab and the area where embryos are stored were both untouched, and he says all clinic staff are safe.
Our Josh Campbell has more details for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this occurred around 11 a.m. local time here in California in Palm Springs, just a couple of hours east of Los Angeles. We're told that there was this explosion, which you can see based on some of our affiliate helicopter footage there. You can see this building impacted as well as nearby buildings. There was debris that was strewn about the street there near downtown Palm Springs.
We're learning that this was a reproductive facility. It's interesting to note that what we're talking about is not an abortion clinic, but rather a fertility clinic, a clinic that assists people with fertility issues, and so we know a host of law enforcement and public safety officials are now on scene. That includes, obviously, the Palm Springs Police Department, the Fire Department, and now we're learning that the FBI as well as the ATF are now on scene.
That is going to be critical because, as Daniel knows, we both served in the FBI, you have these specialists within the organization that can actually look to try to detect, was there any type of explosive residue in and around that area? Does this have the signature of an actual type of intentional explosion?
Again, we're learning from the "Associated Press" that this is being treated, investigated as a vehicle explosion, but there's still a lot of questions. We don't yet know whether there was potentially a device that was near a vehicle. Was it in a vehicle? That is something that investigators are trying to determine. We do know that there was one fatality in this incident.
One of the doctors that runs this facility spoke to "AP" and told them that, thankfully, none of the employees were impacted, were harmed, there were no patients there that were at the time of this explosion, but a lot of investigative work that's happening, not only at the central point there that you see on your screen of the explosion, but authorities in an incident like this would also be wanting to canvas any type of surveillance, CCTV footage around the area. Other businesses are trying to determine, was this an intentional act that the person conducted in real time? Was this a device that was left behind? A lot of work going on right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: At least 25 people have been reported killed by a violent storm system that tore through parts of the Midwestern United States. Large tornadoes were reported in Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri on Friday and Saturday, with 18 people killed in Kentucky alone. One man captured video of a twister approaching his house in St. Louis, Missouri.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A tornado man. Man, the tornado. Oh (bleep). Oh (bleep).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: Nearly half a million homes and businesses across several states are without power right now, and it's not over yet. The storms are part of a multi-day system of severe weather that's expected to stretch into the early part of next week.
CNN's Julia Vargas Jones shows us some of the destruction of the first wave left behind.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the extent of the damage St. Louis is still grappling with. Downed trees, downed power lines, lots of the city still without power. This one tree we watched earlier as a crew of volunteers chopped it into pieces to try and clear the road of this one street. Behind me here, row after row of houses that have sustained some severe damage, most of them to the roofs, windows, but this first house that had been in this family, the owner told me, for six generations, the whole back of it, that one room, completely gone. That's the case for a lot of different streets in this neighborhood, the parallel streets. One other resident telling us that it felt like it was five tornadoes hitting at once.
[23:55:11]
In about 50 minutes, another resident said, that's how quickly the tornadoes tore through here and caused all of this damage. Some of the city crews have been here. They have painted that orange X in the doors. That means that these houses have already been checked. This is, of course, the search and rescue operations continue.
More than 5,000 structures have been damaged according to the mayor in this. Of course, that does make sense. We've seen those videos. Winds of up to 100 miles an hour. It's scary. A lot of the residents that lived through it said they heard hail hitting at their doors. They went to the lower parts of their house.
Tonight, there will be a curfew in place from 9 p.m. until 6 in the morning as the city tries to control some of the dangers that could come from there not being power in many hours at the city as well as some residents trying to take the matters into their own hands and trying to clean up by themselves. They're urging people to be safe and coordinate with authorities if they choose to do that to ensure that everything is done safely and no one is in danger.
Julia Vargas Jones, CNN, St. Louis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: Authorities in Louisiana are still searching for seven men who were part of a mass jailbreak on Friday morning. State police released these photos saying three of the inmates who escaped have been captured.
The sheriff said they broke out of a New Orleans jail after breaching a wall behind a toilet. Officials are investigating whether the prisoners had help from inside the sheriff's department. Online records show they're facing charges for violent crimes and some for murder.
Well, that's all we've got for you for now. Thanks for joining me. I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta. The news continues after a short break. See you in a bit.
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