Lucky to be alive. I spoke with the man who says he was one of the last people to cross Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge moments before the catastrophic collapse Now, this eerie video taken from a traffic camera shows the final vehicles crossing the bridge last Tuesday morning. Larry DeSantis tells me his pickup truck was among them. The local baker says he was commuting to his early morning shift and estimates he made it within the final few minutes before the dolly hit. One of the Bridges Key supports sending it crumbling into the river. Didn't even realize the bridge had collapsed, but I had gotten over the bridge and someone called me, but maybe 2 minutes later and said, where are you at? That was my other job call. And I said, well, I just went over the bridge. I said, well, you know, the bridge just collapsed. And I'm like, I was really shocked. I didn't have any idea of it. When you watch that video and you saw your your truck must have been one of the last if not the last vehicle to go. There was 1 other vehicle behind me. It was a tractor that he didn't have a trailer because I actually got in front of him right as we started to go over the bridge. Wow. And that was I never saw another vehicle after that. I did get over the bridge and they were doing construction on the bridge that were constantly doing repairs on it. So I was very cautious about going there. I really wasn't paying attention to anything on the outside because I was, you know, with the workers and stuff there. You got to be really careful. The speed limit is down to 45, you know, so I was taking my time and it was just strange that there wasn't much traffic because I may not be talking to you right now. It's less than a minute later, you know, it's that close on the edge. Just it's scary. What was your reaction when you actually eventually saw the video and just saw the whole bridge? I just couldn't believe it. I mean, it looked like a toy, just you know, falling into the water in a way. It just I still can't believe it. I mean, I keep looking to see if it's still there. And it's it's not it's hard to believe just that quick. And still, almost a week later, there is a lot that needs to be done. Major developments on the ground today, including the Coast Guard says the first section of the collapsed bridge has been removed from the water. A crane is working on removing other pieces. But as you can see, there is a lot there today. Maryland's governor is telling CNN this is an intricate process that will take time. Officials have said they hope to create a temporary shipping channel around the wreckage. So at least the ships can still get in and out of the very busy port. All right. Happening now, an important milestone in Baltimore right there. You can see live pictures of the Botafogo River the collapsed key bridge there. Through the fog. What is happening there now is very important. Crews are getting ready to open a temporary alternate channel around that collapsed key bridge for essential traffic in and out of the port. That port obviously one of the busiest in the country. It has been closed to traffic for nearly a week. Now, he says. Gabe Cohen is on the shores of the Tabasco River this morning. Gabe, why don't you tell us what will be happening Yeah, John, that's a huge update that they're going to hopefully open that alternate channel pretty soon to get port traffic in and out. Unfortunately, at this point, we really don't have a timeline because crews are still working to clear wreckage from the river and they're doing it very carefully and methodically trying to figure out where to cut the steel and the concrete. They describe it essentially like a rubber band, this wreckage site, a rubber band that's been pulled tight. And if you cut it in the wrong place, it could snap, which could be extremely dangerous for the crews that are out on the water, the divers doing their work, scanning and surveying the wreckage, trying to figure out where is the right place to start pulling at the debris. And so, again, they want to go at this the right way, knowing as well that the four missing construction workers are believed to potentially be buried under the rubble and they want to be able to recover those men and offer closure to their families John. And so at this point, we don't know when they're going to have enough of the wreckage cleared to be able to open that channel. We also don't know the size of the ship that's going to be able to actually access it, whether it's going to be able to handle, let's say, a container ship. Thousands of jobs at the port and around Baltimore are at stake right now. Millions of dollars in local impact in lost wages to port workers, as well as business operations. And we know that the federal government is assisting. They have offered already this $60 million package, but it's really just a down payment, John, handling some of these early steps of clearing wreckage. We've heard from Transportation Secretary Pete Gutierrez about his call to lawmakers to get a bigger package passed Take a listen. Well, the pitch is your district could be next. And also, this has historically been bipartisan. And I'm not just reaching back to a bygone eras. Remember the infrastructure package itself? President Biden's infrastructure plan went through on a bipartisan basis. A lot of people didn't think that was possible when we got here in 20, 21. But the president never gave up on the idea. And sure enough, a lot of Republicans were willing to cross the aisle, work with President Biden and work with Democrats to get this done. And John, I don't know how well you can see the conditions around us, but the rain is really coming down. It is gusty. It is cold. Again, just really tough conditions for the workers out there trying to clear all of that wreckage from the Chicago River. Yeah, we can hear the rain gave. It sounds like it's just pouring there and that will no doubt make the conditions difficult, not just for today, but for several days. There's a whole other issue with this storm system, how it will impact the entire northeast. We'll get to that in a second. Gabe Cohen, thank you so much for being there. Stay dry if you can.
