Number of casualties could be large. Theyre saying if youre heading toward the area, but thank you. They have what they need. Weve been listening through wsvn search in south florida. All right, ralph. Thank you. Lynn martinez joining use for this live coverage. Jeff and i will be with you for a while. Going to see this till the end. We want to give you an updated piece of information before we recap everything. I told you earlier miamidade rescue was asking for additional help. This is a fluid situation. This happens in breaking news. Things change. Tell everybody miamidade rescue is not requesting additional doctors and nurses to respond. If you heard me say that, youre not being urged to go. Shepard Lynn Martinez reiterating what we said. This just in through us through the reporting of usa today. Theres seven cars underneath this bridge at this moment, including the vehicle which we saw a minute ago, which was crushed only partially. In total, seven vehicles are underneath this bridge. According to the reporting of usa today. You can see orange plastic fencing on the bottom. There were plenty of cars underneath this busy roadway. Eight lanes of traffic. If you have ever been in that area, you know that eighth street and tamiami is very busy. When the bridge collapsed, maybe there were no pedestrians on it crossing. Might have been construction workers on the top there. There were definitely drivers below when the bridge pancaked on top of each other. The large pieces of concrete smashing on to the vehicles below. Several people are dead. One person has been transported to kendall Regional Medical center. This is a 950 ton span of bridge that collapsed. To the right to the left is ground pictures. The challenge right now to this catastrophic event is getting the 950 on the span of concrete off of the cars. The Technical Rescue Team there has set up a command post. The mission is search and rescue to get to anybody that may be trapped underneath and get them help that they need. Thats why our chopper had to pull back. The noise on rotors could be creating ambient noise. Helicopters have pulled back to use the devices to see if anybody is under the bridge and trying to call out for help. We talk about the structure. The pedestrian bridge designed to connect sweet water to the fiu campus. First of its kind the way it was constructed, constructed off site and brought in over the weekend. It was lifted saturday. We have rosh lowe establishing his ground picture. Okay. This is what i was talking about. Southwest eight street being closed down. You can see an active situation. You can see private ambulances down there as well as Miamidade Police. In the distance, you can see the bridge there. They have moved us back about seven or eight blocks as they are trying to get trying to remove the rubble. We spoke with miamidade fire rescue. What they told me to repeat this information in case you werent with us, they told me that they wouldnt know the totality of what is going on until they moved all of the concrete there on the ground. Obviously these are anxious moments for people just arriving on the scene. We spoke with one person that said a friend called them and said that somebody was injured, extremely helpless. Even firefighters to a certain extent. You cant remove all of the concrete until they can bring in some of the heavy machinery, heavy lifting equipment to get the concrete out of there. We have Public Information officers from miamidade fire rescue and Miamidade Police on route to the scene at an area that is closer on the fiu campus. In terms of numbers, they should be forthcoming soon as they can determine how many people they have underneath that bridge, if anyone. Right now you can see southwest eighth street which is usually packed with traffic especially near the turnpike, shut down there as you have all of the rescue units on the scene. Now the initial process begins trying to remove the rubble. And rosh, this was described as a level 2 meaning more than five patients theyre dealing with. Is that correct . Yes. The severity of this was increased. What we have learned in the passed in situations like this, you do want to stay away from numbers because its very sense ty and b, you dont know. What you do know are the people that you can see that were injured and those people. You can see the apartment of ambulances that were here. Hopefully youll hear from some of the witnesses. We spoke to one witness over the phone. She was headed to class. She said its so bizarre. At one moment you see the bridge and the next it collapses. Kristin from miamidade fire compared the rescue effort to similar of an earthquake. Its there one moment and collapses the exinext. Southwest eighth street is a very busy road. We can see one vehicle under the bridge. Thats Something Else for miamidade fire rescue to determine. Well keep reporters live on the scene as we bridge you the live pictures to the left a ground picture coming from rosh or holly. To your right is an aerial view from Ralph Rayburn. I want to go back to ralph. Ralph, have we seen any movement from the crane or the attempt to remove the large slabs of concrete . No, that wont be happening for a while. Theyre trying to assess the damages from the standpoint of initially, lynn, its search and rescue. The term they use, search and rescue and then its search and recovery after they determine they cant render any aid. At this point, theyre focusing on several small sections of what would be the westbound road at 108th and ninth avenue. Theyre using several listening devices provided by the Technical Rescue Team there. Shepard weve been Shepard Smith in new york. Were listening to Ralph Rayburn in the chopper there. We have a number of different news organizations with whom we work there. The picture is worse than the pictures tell. Theres multiple witnesses to this that have reported to local news organizations, abc news and the miami herald and others, in the early going when you could still see the dust rising from the collapse, that people that were there could hear screams from beneath it. More than half a dozen vehicles are said to be crushed. They dont know how many people are under this bridge. Those witnesses to this said at least in the early going, there were people had survived. Theres a race to get heavy lifting equipment in and get anybody that may be trapped underneath and survived out. If youre on your phone or social media, im confident you can look around and find any number of casualties and injuries and dead. Those numbers are not worthy of our air at this moment for we dont know the whole story. Rosh low pus it as succinctly as ive heard. 512 have gone to local hospitals, including Level One Trauma Center there, Jackson Memorial medical center. And that a number of people have died because authorities have witnessed such and doctors have pronounced that a number of people have died. What we dont know is the extent of what is happening under the bridge. You can see theres one section that is still somewhat upright. The authorities are on scene telling the local news organizations, theyre concerned this piece, too, could collapse. So theyre trying to keep people away from this piece of it while trying to get heavy lifting equipment in to deal with this piece of it while at Jackson Memorial, other hospitals, theyre treating the injured, trying to notify the next of kin or the Emergency Contacts of those here and a sea of people doing what they can. But so far from the looks of things, if theyve been able to get heavy lifting equipment in there, it would appear at least that they havent been able to get much of it. Theyre trying against all else. Well get it in there as quickly as they can were relying on the coverage from wsvn 7. Lets listen in. Lifting the stricture will come in time. Right now its obviously, the assessment is there anybody left underneath there still alive. Thats the number 1 consideration. Thats what theyre doing right now. Once they make that consideration, if they establish contact, im sure well see a scurry of activity. Thats not happening now. What were seeing especially right in the dead center of the screen below the base of the red crane, theres firefighters there. One appearing to be doing manual labor. Our distance does not enable us to give you any tighter picture. Were several miles away after a consideration was given to the fact that they needed silence so they could hear any cries for help or any noises or sounds emanating from the big pile of debris. We do err on the side of caution when it comes to numbers. Florida Highway Patrol are reporting several people are died. At least five vehicles were completely trapped underneath that pedestrian bridge. Stay with me, ralph. Just getting a statement from the Construction Company that constructed this pedestrian bridge that was pit in place on saturday. Our thoughts and prayers going out to everybody affected by this tragedy. The bridge collapsed and causing injuries and loss of life. Unilla Construction Management is a Family Business and were doing everything we can to assist. Well do a full investigation to determine what went wrong and cooperate with investigators. That statement from manilla Construction Management. They installed this bridge saturday. More construction to come set to start. And were hearing that shepard for location, if you were to be in downtown miami along the miami river and head west from downtown miami and head west to the tamiami trail, go 18 miles to you west and youd run into Florida International university. Its at the corner this particular corner is southwest eight street and the tamiami trail. So i guess youll call it western miamidade. Its a busy of town. An eight lane road on to which this has collapsed. Heres the map of the area, Florida International university. Just to the left of that, a local reporter setting up for a live report. Rosh lowe on the ground there. Heres the bridge collapse. You heard Lynn Martinez and Ralph Rayburn in the chopper saying they dont know if anybody is alive under the bridge. They heard screaming and what you might imagine when it first happened. Whether they were able to hear anything out in is outside the bounds of what we can report. The authorities are very busy trying to rescue people and what has become a mass casualty situation in south florida. Were getting something off of twitter from miamidade fire officials that more Technical Resources are now on their way to the scene at fiu. We heard from ralph earlier or maybe lynn out here, cant remember, but rescue workers were asking doctors, nurses if they can head over to try to assist. On the left, live pictures of the scene now. On the right, the bridge as it was being built. Catastrophic accident were talking about. Thats why it was earlier and still all hands on deck. Doctors, nurses, paramedicparam Police Officers on the scene. Ralph in the air. In terms of this first of its kind bridge as the Investigation Continues to unfold, investigators with miami fire rescue and others try to figure out what happened here, theyll be closing closely at the construction project. A new type of concrete was used, a new installment method was used. All of those questions will come into play as this Investigation Continues to unfold. The urgency of the situation as ralph and rosh have mentioned is the search and rescue operation. Listening devices are being implemented and used underneath the bridge right now to see if anyone is in fact still alive. The priority is to get them out safely. From what we understand, maybe half a dozen cars or so. Its hard to tell. This is a fluid situation. A few construction workers may have been on top of it working on it as well. So a lot of possible lives at risk as a result of this collapse. You can see ralph had a good image earlier. You can see war coolers, gloves from construction workers on the top of the bridge. May have been some construction workers on the bridge when it collapsed. Ralph, any word if there were any construction workers injured . No, we cant speak to that we understand they did a head count and have accounted for all of the construction workers that were in the area. They assemble them all. You can see the upper lefthand corner in the orange skirts. The majority of the crew arriving on the scene. Unsafe structures representatives are here along with the Building Department folks that have responded out here. Theyve been in the center of the screen, all the blue shirts there. A smaller crane i dont know if you can make it out dead center in the middle of the screen, the wide door, one of the control modules for that crane. It pulled in, came down to roadway here from the west side traveling east and has pulled up to the west side of the collapse. Its a lifting crane. Our understanding is its being brought in for a stand by position in case they need it to lift concrete out of the way. The miamidade Technical Team is here. Theyre in the process of going from one side of the accident to the other. Theyve had several firefighters cram bell to get a quick look underneath to try to render aid if necessary. As indicateder he indicated earlier, they want to assess the situation and see if anybody is alive, is there a rescue or is this a recovery process. The bridge came crossing down here, two tiers of it. The walk itself and then the structure above it came down, pancaked on top of a number of vehicles traveling in the area there. Some folks were able to scramble out of their vehicles. Miraculously we saw in some of our video a couple cars where concrete came down on the hood. Did not make egress into the cabin of the vehicle so the front windshield was intact and the doors were open and appeared that the people got out. There were several people of what the Fire Department called walking wounded with minor bumps and bruises. Five people transported to kendall Regional Medical center with injuries including one trauma alert. Thats where they have life threatening injuries or severe injuries. They notified the department there that thats where they were going to be taking that particular victim. Of course we heard there was one person diseased in a vehicle that was clearly visible. We believe thats where the yellow tarp was set up in ten lanes. Now were hearing there were several other fatalities. Were waiting to get more information. Fire rescue did an assessment. We spoke about who is here and who they were doing. Theyve don an accounting and most of the construction workers have been accounted for. They found another victim that selfextricated himself from the accident and ran as it came tumbling down in the parking garage on the right side of the screen. Didnt want to go off too far. The parking garage there and tweeted and hes in good condition. Thats the latest as far as the information goes as to what is happening right now at this construction accident. Shepard Ralph Rayburn reporting from sky fox. Very near the scene. I want to give you context. This university is in an area of town called sweetwater. Right off the tamiami park. Tamiami park, a place where they have sports parks, yearround swimming pool, batting cages there. They mentioned that some of the injured went to kendall hospital which is due south along the florida turnpike or the Ronald Reagan turnpike. Those that werent severely injured were taken to kendall. Has rebuild since hurricane andrew and is a booming and bustling area. This part of town on a thursday afternoon approaching half passed 3 00 would be extremely busy with eight lanes of traffic. Weve gotten word from the Construction Company, you heard locals talk about this bridge had just been completed. Not officially open to pedestrian traffic there at Florida International university in sweet water. Not officially open yet. There may have been construction workers on scene. Lots of vehicular traffic beneath it when this happened. The construction crew sent out a statement saying our thoughts and prayer goes out to everyone affected by this terrible tragedy. The new university bridge was under construction and experienced a catastrophic collapse caused injuries and loss of life. The name of the company is mcm or munilla construction. Well conduct a full investigation and determine what went wrong and cooperate with investigators on the scene. Rosh lowe reporting live. Lets listen. We ran to the name of a nan named ariel valdez. He said a friend was under the bridge and may have been injured. This is a large part of the story right now. A lot of people, especially when theyre hearing the news of this, that theyre full of anxiety and apprehension, not knowing if their loved ones were underneath the bridge. We have the interview now if we can go to that. My friends sister called me. My childhood friend was crossing as the bridge was coming down. It hit him. You know how he is doing . I dont know. I dont know. He was rushed to the hospital. I dont know. Im just so worried. What is the persons name . I dont want to say that right now. His mom is in another country. I cant release that. Im sorry. So tell me what you know what happened. He was crossing the street at the moment the bridge was coming down. I dont know. He was severely injured. And you got a phone call from who . His sister. She said he was injured and rushed to the hospital. You got a really good idea what people are going through. That interview was shot by our chief photographer when he arrived just moments really, 1015 minutes after this bridge here behind me collapsed. Mario was on the scene hear getting information that one of his friends was injured, a childhood friend. That is only one of the stories. I wanted to bring that t