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the past hour i would say based on the aerial images from wniw from fox here in new york. multiple fire officials have responded down here. we do not know whether anyone was tossed into the water, stayed in the boat or perhaps were tossed on land. you see the side of that boat as it same in for this hard landing in the bottom right hand corner of your screen, that took a healthy chunk out of that commuter boat. that is a boat, by the way, which takes come phaoeurt commuters from new jersey into lower manhatten on a daily basis. this boat had not been in operation for two and a half months based on the reports we had, that was prior to super storm sandy that put it out of service. rick leventhal is on the scene. reporter: it s a pretty remarkable scene here, bill. the area is flooded with ambulances, firetrucks and emergency personnel, firefighters and police all over peer 11. they are now talking off with empty stretchers.
bill: more than 50 injuries. some of the witnesses are talk right now. one person saying that we went full speed into the pier. this from an eyewitness moments ago in lower manhatten. have a listen. i was sitting down upstairs towards the back. can you describe what happened? as i said i was half asleep and all of a sudden there was this loud bang and my face catapulted liken to the seat in front of me and my knee hit the seat, because it s scraped up a little bit. there were a lot of people standing up putting on their coats standing on the staircase. bill: imagine it s 8:45 in the morning. you re on a 140-not commuter boat preparing to dock in lower manhatten and start your day at work. many of these commuters we believe originated in new jersey were coming to new york city for a day of work. now there is an ntsb go team
take a look at this commuter boat that slammed apparently into a dock coming into a hard landing about an hour and six minutes ago. at least 17 injured thus far, multiple fire crews responding here. we ve seen several people on gurneys and in stretchers being led away from that commuter boat. we re watching that story. more for you on that just about nine minutes away. top of the hour with new information on what s happening there. martha: all right. let s go back to d.c. for a moment where republicans are now pushing for spending cuts, right? here we go again, in the next major debt battle which has to do with the debt ceiling, the next chapter of this whole thing. they gave up on the tax hikes in the fiscal cliff deal. democrats have promised to deal with cuts during the next fight and extending the nation s credit card limit but critics say the potential nomination of the white house chief of staff jack lew to treasury secretary shows president obama has no intention following throu