New Orleans tanker collides with river boat

Live emerging news here, a live look at what's happening in New Orleans. I'll just give you the headline here from the Associated Press. Live pictures here of the response after a tanker struck a New Orleans river cruise. There were 129 passengers on board. The river cruise boat is now partially underwater. Rescues are underway. This is all happening on the Mississippi River. At this point, authorities have not given any firm information on how many people may be injured or perhaps worse. There is like a large tanker that appears to have hit a paddle wheel cruise boat that we are getting reports that say it was docked. I mentioned a minute ago that I wish we could... Have another live picture or we had audio from this one because sometimes you can hear things that inform you about what's going on. So look at that. We have a live picture. Let me go ahead and see if I can get some sound on this one because I assume that we would be hearing a helicopter. All right. We see here at least one helicopter in the air. I am guessing. I don't know if that's a medical helicopter, perhaps if it's the Coast Guard. But there is a rescue underway Let's take a look. How about this? Let's just go ahead and watch this rescue sort of unfold. I'm going to take myself offline and I'll look for more information. I'll jump back on with you as soon as I get it. I'm just going to go ahead and jump on super quick. I want to explain what you're seeing on the screen. We saw a rescue boat from, I believe, St. Bernard Parish. The sheriff from St. Bernard is there on a boat there in the water. That's the right-hand side of your screen. You'll have to bear with me here. The camera's moving around a little bit. That's part of a crew that is in the active process of news gathering. And then on the left-hand side, that's the picture that we showed you right off the bat here. It is sort of the larger picture that tells what's happening. The headline really hasn't changed all that much, but I'll give it to you again. A tanker has struck a New Orleans river cruise. 129 passengers said to be on board. The river cruise boat is partially underwater. Rescues are underway. This is all playing out on the Mississippi River. At this point, we have not heard anything about what has happened to the 129 people. There's something in the water there. You know what? Sylvia, take a look at that right-hand side. That's just debris, right? Or is that a someone? I can't imagine. Do you see what I'm talking about? You think it's just debris? I see a little something. I see kind of a few white larger pieces of what clearly is debris, and I just want to make sure it's not a someone. Hold on. I have Sammy, who has been up there at the assignment desk. Go ahead, Sammy. Can you hear me, Demi? Okay. Oh, good. Disaster. Okay. Okay, great, great. So it sounds like the folks who are just going to turn on the TV instead of streaming us here on Fox Local, they'll be able to get an update as well. I'm going to keep staring at this picture on the right-hand side of the screen. I want to make sure that I'm not seeing a someone. I think I might just be thinking the worst. Clearly, that's some debris in the water here. And then, of course, the left-hand side of the picture, there you see some more boats coming to really the scene of what was clearly a major situation. I don't know if it's, I guess we could easily call it an accident. I don't know what caused the collision. That is a question for another time, because right now, the number one focus is on life and safety. All right, I'm going to go ahead and actually pull down the audio. The voice of a woman we heard a minute ago, that was, I believe, the reporter who was tied to the camera that we see there on the right. So if she's trying to communicate with her assignment editors, I want to give her a little bit of privacy. We'll go ahead and stay on these twin live pictures. Thank you very much. Did we get new information? Not just yet. All right, the headline remains the same. This is breaking news. We're giving you a live picture of what's happening here in New Orleans. A tanker struck a New Orleans river cruise. 129 passengers were on board. The cruise boat is now at least partially underwater. Rescues are underway. This is all playing out on the Mississippi River. Authorities have not said how many people have been injured or perhaps worse. We're still working to get information. I do not have a time for a briefing, so we don't know when we'll be hearing from the authorities on that. There's a much larger Atlantic asphalt tanker that's that big ship that By these monitors I'm looking at, and probably yours at home, looks kind of white and then a forest green and then sort of a salmon color on the very bottom where it meets the water. That is the tanker that hit the paddle wheel cruise boat. While it appeared to be docked, people seen in the river in life jackets, some standing near the railing as the other side of the paddle wheel boat was dipping deeper into the water. We understand the cruise ship is operated by American Cruise Lines. The lieutenant from the New Orleans Emergency Medical Services says this is sort of an all hands on deck, a number of agencies responding. I imagine that it is not only the sheriff's department. Hold on, our producer Sylvia is telling us we have one more thing to look at. Oh my gosh. I'm just going to take this. You're seeing this two seconds after I saw it. Wow. This picture that's on your screen now tells a much more thorough story. I can now tell that what we were looking at is really just a small part of it. That is incredible. Wow. Take a look at your screen. Here we can clearly see, wow, this is the cruise liner that is now fully on its side. I can't tell if it's... Floating or if it's resting in shallow water, I would assume it's floating because you wouldn't want to have boats, you know, use water that's that shallow. Wow. Wow. This is wild. All right. You'll have to sort of excuse my completely unscripted thoughts, but I'm seeing this for the first time as you are. Oh, that's terrible. Wow. 129 people on board. Rescues underway. I see one, two, three, four people standing. I don't know the exact terms for parts of a boat, so I'm just going to say standing on the top there. Can I ask you, I see that there's a reporter about to do what looks like an update. Can we take her, Sylvia? Let me see, because it looks like we have someone from the local station there in New Orleans. I'm wondering if we might be able to take her. It looks like she might be ready to do a live report. Can I go ahead and take her? All right, let's go ahead and do this. I want to stay on this picture. I'm sorry. You guys at home are so patient with me. I'm going to change this image you're about to see so that we can... Okay, hold on. And her audio would be on what channel? I guess seven? All right, let me... Sorry, if you're at home... Then we started seeing some Coast Guard boats roll in and if a photojournalist Drew Miller can give us a look now we're seeing what appears to be wreckage here in the Mississippi River. If we get a really as close of a look as we can give you, I can. What I think look to be chairs. I'm not exactly sure, of course, exactly what else is there floating, but we certainly see debris debris here in the Mississippi River. Now we're about two and two hours and 15 minutes after this. This call came in. We all came in early this afternoon about this crash and this situation involving so many people who are aboard this river cruiser this afternoon. So, of course, like like Rob was saying, you know, this is an ever changing situation. Looking to hear some more from our officials pretty soon. But as it's been changing here, we are right outside the food court here at the Riverwalk New Orleans. And, you know, just as we looked over, we saw this here floating by for our viewers again. what appears to be potentially chairs. All right. I just wanted to jump on. This is Garcia Michaelian in the KTVU Fox, and Fox Local San Francisco newsroom. We're joining you here live at 12:47 with some breaking news. Take a look at your screen. There is a dire situation unfolding in New Orleans. A tanker has struck a New Orleans river cruise. 129 passengers were on board when this happened. You can see the boat is clearly on its side. Let me go ahead and take you back to that live report here. We'll join in progress from New Orleans. Water that firefighters work to rescue them. And, you know, we're still looking to understand the condition of those people and and certainly spoke with a lot of people. A lot of people who are frantic and trying to understand exactly what was going on here this afternoon. But for now, reporting live, Gabby Hill at Fox 8, back to you in the studio. I'll just say that this is Gatsby again. We're going to hold on. It looks like she might be getting a question from some of the anchors in New Orleans. We'll hold and listen now for an answer. Yeah, we can bring our viewers back to get a close look there. Thank you, John. You know, I really can't tell myself here. We just do know that there's a lot of debris surrounding them. I don't know if those are cushions that look like square objects almost. And they do seem to be not totally stationary. I guess you can't tell it totally in the picture, but are kind of floating along the river from my vantage point here right up outside the food court. So not exactly sure exactly. What this is, of course, you know, still trying to understand this this potential wreckage. But this is what we see for now. Thank you. All right. This is Garcia again here inside the newsroom. I'm with you in the Bay Area. Again, the headline here is it's a serious situation unfolding in New Orleans. If you were just joining us on KTVU Fox 2, we've been on this on Fox Local San Francisco for a little bit. The images, frankly, are stunning. And I'll go ahead and I'll Kind of take the one on the left full here so you can really read exactly what's happening. I'll go ahead and back up and give you the story from the beginning. A tanker struck a New Orleans river cruise. 129 passengers were on board when this happened earlier today. You can see that that river cruise boat is, from my eye, fully on its side, floating in the water there. Rescues are underway. This is all happening in the Mississippi River. At this point, one of the most important questions that are still unanswered, how many people... Directly impacted, certainly everybody on board that boat is directly impacted. Was there anybody who was injured? Is there anything worse that's happened on board? Was everybody who was on there able to get off safely? So we're going to go ahead and hold on this because just the image of this is so, it's almost like... Befuddling to the eye. We're not used to seeing boats do this. We do know that earlier some people were seen in the river in life jackets or standing near the railing. The name of the company that operates that cruise is American Heritage. The cruise ship, I'm sorry, American Cruise Lines, American Heritage. This is, I give you that really detailed information in case you have, you know, let's say your daughter just got married. She's married, she's having a... Honeymoon in New Orleans. I'm on the company's website right now and I don't see a ton of information. Oops, hold on. Okay, so this is interesting. So they have some overnight cruises. Can't tell. You know what, this might be the same. I don't know if this is an overnight cruise or if this is one of those afternoon cruises, but the company here that's directly affected does offer an eight-day, seven-night cruise in New Orleans. I'm going to go ahead and get started in just a few minutes. But the information we're really looking to figure out at this point is what happened to the people on board? How are they doing? Was everybody rescued safely? Is anybody injured? I do know that any time you... are having a certain number of people on board. Of course, you have to have life vests for everyone. You have to have an evacuation plan. You need to have a safety plan. That's something that is usually communicated even before you step foot on board, and then usually it's kind of the first public address you get, right? If something happens, this is what you need to do. Just such a stunning picture. Let me see if I can bring up if there's any sound to learn from. Hang on with me one second. All right, no, no sound to bring you. Earlier, we did have a helicopter above the waters here. I'm scanning all the sources that I have available to me, and I'm wondering if there are any other pictures that we can go to. That's the same one that we're on. I'm looking for something new. And I don't see, darn, I don't see another picture that I can bring you. All right. Let me just confer with our producer. This is about the best picture we have of this, right, Sylvia? All right, that is the case. All right, let's go ahead. The other picture that we were watching as a reporter was doing her work. It's much clearer now, but there's really nothing to see, so I won't even bother you with it. But, um... But we can see a number of boats moving in the water. Clearly things are still very active. You take a look at the building that's on the left-hand side of your screen. People are sort of lined up right against the edge, trying to get a better view of what's happening there in the water. I don't know New Orleans well enough to tell you what bridge that is, but I have been. It's been about 20 years here. We used to live in Houston for a minute. We'll be right back in a minute. So it's a big business, right? I mean, you think about what do we do here in the Bay Area, right? You go to the Bay, you get on an Alcatraz tour, you know, you pay your whatever it is, $60 and that sort of thing. So that tourist phenomenon of paddle boat cruises on the Mississippi River, that's very much a thing. Yeah, that is the first thing our producer Sammy just said. That's the first thing I think of. I think we took a cruise, but it was on a much smaller boat. I looked up the company American Cruise Lines. And when I hear paddle boat, I think of something much smaller than the ship you and I see on its side there in the Mississippi River. There is a, on the company's website, there is a fairly large boat that's very much similar. Yeah, my friend and co-host here, Allie Rasmus, by the way, she'll be the one to take over in a few minutes. She's mentioning maybe like the paddle part of this is on the back. When we took our paddle boat cruise, it was a much smaller vessel. That's all I can tell you. I wish we could push in a little bit to show you exactly what we're looking at. If you're seeing this picture for the first time with me, look almost right in the center of your screen. That's the boat that was struck. That's the boat that's now on its side. Any minute now, we're going to be hearing from Mark Nouveau. If you've been any part of our coverage over the past several years, he's a familiar face and voice. He used to work for FEMA. He was a former FEMA coordinator. He gives us good insight any time. Rescue crews are dealing with either an imminent danger or they're trying to respond to some sort of disaster. Clearly, this is something that's happening, you know, three quarters of the way across the country. But just the images are so stunning. And the fact that we had to have 129 people on board. Let me see what is today. It's Friday the 13th. I'm trying to figure out this is so interesting. I'm on the website for American Cruise Lines and. They have listed a Mississippi cruise, supposed to be an eight-day, seven-night round trip from New Orleans, and it says that it... Left today. It was supposed to leave today. It is leaving today. It lists this Friday the 13th as the start of its eight-day, seven-night cruise. Let me go ahead and click more. Oh, I see. And it goes up the Mississippi. So you go from New Orleans to Oak Alley to Baton Rouge, St. Francisville, Natchez, Vicksburg. All right. Let me kind of scroll down. Oh, it's interesting. Okay. Wow. All right. All right. Let me do this. Sammy, our editor, is telling me that he just sent me a little bit more information. Some of this we already know. You've heard tanker collides with a river cruiser carrying 129 people. This is near the port of New Orleans. Rescues are underway. Let me see. Okay. So according to the mayor there, Helena Moreno, a number of people have been rescued. Search and rescue Rescue operations are still ongoing. Um, hopefully we'll be able to hear from either the mayor or the governor, Jeff Landry. Governor says he is aware of the incident heading to New Orleans. I don't know where he's leaving from the port of New Orleans. Press secretary says a tanker collided with the American Cruise Lines, American Heritage. You know that already. All right. Here's some firm timing. They say it happened at 1230. They're two hours ahead of us. So that is 1030 our time. So 1030, 1130. So about two and a half hours ago, almost. Yeah. Two and a half hours ago. At the time of the collision, there were 129 passengers in addition to crew aboard. The river cruise was docked on the Mississippi River when the Atlantic Asphalt tanker collided with it. The ship docked two hours earlier to begin passenger disembarkation. Emergency response teams are doing rescue work and responding. Passengers are being brought inside the Port of New Orleans Administration Building. That is the latest information that I have. But I just have to go back to the pictures that you and I are seeing live on our screen. It is just stunning. If you're kind of looking at this anew and wondering where to look, I will... hang on. Is this... I'm searching around. This must be a drone. Is this from a drone? It must be. You see it moving. I think that's what it is. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised, just for you at home, I don't know if you noticed this, probably you did, you can see that the picture is moving. It's either a drone or maybe a helicopter, because I can, like the vantage point, it's kind of like they're coming up and over, so it looks like whoever's at the controls of this camera. Oh wow, okay, so here's something else. I'm going to pop this up real briefly, and then I'll get right back to this. Because I see a couple of microphones set up, this is clearly part of the emergency response. This gives me an indication that we may be hearing We're hearing from an official... Kind of really any minute now. So we'll go ahead and let me get back. Wow, look. So the person at the controls of the camera up above has really zoomed in. Now you can see exactly what's happening. Again, it is so strange to see any sort of vessel directly on its side. But, of course, the immediate concern is for the 129 people who are on board. Let me see if I can go ahead and build a quick double box. Sammy? We're going to wrap our viewers at one. Okay. Come back on KTVU when we have a press conference. Okay, great. Let's do that. I'm going to give me a second at home. I am going to build a quick picture that allows you to have two views of what's happening. And for those of you who might be new to this sort of coverage, I appreciate your patience. I am sort of talking myself through the buttons that we're pushing, that I'm pushing. So here we have two live pictures on the screen. Again, the one on the left tells the big story here that there was a tanker collision. A paddle boat is on its side. One hundred twenty nine people on board. We know rescues were and are underway. The other picture on the right hand side of your screen. That is what we expect to be, the scene of a briefing on this breaking news here any minute. We're actually going to put a quick pause on our coverage here on KTVU Fox 2. If you want continuing live coverage, meet me over on Fox Local San Francisco, over on the Fox Local app. And then so you know, we'll be jumping back on to KTVU Fox 2 as well when we get that live briefing. So we will have that for you. Once it happens, we're coming up on the 1 o'clock hour. Hold on. All right, I'm going to go ahead and jump back on so you know the breaking news is still essentially what it's been. I've been working to find newer numbers. Yes. Good, good, good. Okay. Okay. Let's do that. Sammy laid out the plan. Let's go ahead and execute. As I was saying, my good friend and colleague, Ali Rasmussen is standing right next to me. She's been watching this all unfold. She's working to get more information as well. The headline here, there is a rescue operation underway here in the port of New Orleans. There is the boat on its side. Clearly, you can see that on the left-hand side of your screen. On the right, it's a live picture. We expect a briefing any minute now. When that happens, Ali will have that for you. I'll be watching in the newsroom as well. So stay with us here. We have to take a two-minute break. We'll come back. We'll be back with more live coverage of this breaking news after that.