So at approximately 0140 hours this morning,
our 911 center dispatched a call to the Baltimore City
Fire Department for a report of a water rescue
in the Patapsco River in the area of the Key
Bridge.
As units were responding, they began to receive numerous calls
indicating multiple people in the water.
At some point during that that chain of events of
calls,
we began to receive indications that a a ship
may have struck the Key Bridge.
We got further information through multiple calls that the Key
Bridge
portions of the Key Bridge had actually collapsed At
about 0150 hours, Our first unit arrived on scene and
reported
a complete collapse of the Key Bridge.
We were also given information at that time that there
were likely multiple people on the bridge at the time
of the collapse and that as a result,
multiple people were in the water.
We were able to remove
two people from the water.
One individual refused service and refused transport.
Essentially, that person was not injured.
However, there was another individual that's been transported to a
local trauma center that is in very serious condition
at this time. We have multiple air assets from the
Maryland State Police
as well as the Baltimore Police Department,
as well as multiple marine assets
from around the region including Baltimore City,
Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County,
as well as multiple local and state police
agencies, National resources, police,
BPD, special opportunities in here.
Maryland State Police is here.
We have multiple resources. We are still very much in
an active search and rescue posture at this point and
we will continue to be for some time.
We have a large area that we have to search.
This includes on the surface of the water subsurface as
well as on the deck of the ship itself.
We believe at this point
we may be looking for,
we may be looking for upwards of seven individuals.
That's the latest information we have.
However, what I will say is,
is the information that I'm giving you right now is
as of right now,
that's what we know right now.
This is a very large incident.
It involves a very large footprint.
Multiple agencies are operating. Therefore,
information is subject to change as we get more Intel
and as our crews work through the morning.
Over the next 8 to 12 hours,
you can expect to continue to see
our air and maritime assets functioning out on the water
and in the air above.
We need to do damage assessment of of the ship
itself before we can board that ship.
And we need to continue
our subsurface search, which is including
different types of sonar. We have side scan sonar.
We have other sonar capabilities here.
We have underwater UAVs that we're working with
and throughout the night we've also been working with infrared
technology both from the air and on the water surface.
So I'm going to wrap up here with just saying
this continues to be a search and rescue operation.
It continues to be a very dynamic operation with multiple
local,
state and federal resources involved.