that has been so, so hard hit. and i guess the first thing is to ask, how are you doing? i m good. i m tired, but i m good. it was a fire and that s what drew a lot of people out to sort of see what was burning, right? and that s what brought you in? a big fire, that s all we knew. reporter: tell us how it went from there? we drove to see the fire and right when we turned the corner, about four or five blocks i guess, the explosion occurred. reporter: how bad? it was bad. it was very loud. like a bomb went off, and you still weren t really sure what exactly it was. reporter: most people go away, but you went toward the area. we went around, we started seeing people with injuries and things like that. so the closer we drove to, you know, kind of the
this is cnn breaking news. welcome back. i m chris cuomo with john berman here in boston. the big story this morning breaking news, a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in the small texas town of west, just north of waco. officials right now giving a preliminary estimate of 5 to 15 people killed. but again, it is early. that number possibly could rise. number of injured very high, also. more than 160 people have been injured, taken to local area hospitals and there is a search and rescue operation under way which will get more intense as day light comes up there. you have to imagine this is a very small town. less than 3,000 people. they only have three ambulances. luckily responding around the
now you can kind of get an idea. they re trying to make that for areas like waco and dallas. they re going to shift a bit sooner than that. as we go throughout the morning, we are going to continue to see rain moving through the area up until about 9:00. and then after that, we re really going to be dealing with the gusty winds. the temperatures are going to be significantly cooler than what they were yesterday. notice we will see some of the 60s and the overnight lows getting very close to about 38 degrees. keep in mind sun rise still roughly about 35 minutes away at 6:55. chris, john, we ll continue to track the storms. send it back over to you. jennifer delgado, thanks very much. one of the big concern tons ground right now from west, tk, is the substance that was inside this plant, this anhydrous ammonia, which is used as fertilizer but can be very, very dangerous. to give us a sense of how dangerous, elizabeth cohen joins us right now. we know a lot about this chemical because
with pulmonary function test. but if you are okay within the first 24-hours from the exposure you are likely to make it through the first day. it is pun gent it is colorless but it has a very, very characteristic smell to it. how long would it stay in the air? that s a good question. it can stay in the air for quite a while. with the winds blowing the positive side is it can blow it out of the area but it will spread it to the adjacent areas. it s all about how much exposure you can get. it s 100 parts per million that can cause major injury the more it is dispersed the less of a chance of injury as a result. dr. marc seigel thank you. there were about 54,000 pounds of the chemical we are talking about located at the west fertilizer.
this is a crime scene. we are not indicating that it is a crime, but we don t know. what that means to us, until we know it was an industrial accident, we will work it as a crime scene. the bigger concerns right now, loss of human life. firefighters, as many as five who responded to the fire at the plant before it exploded. still unaccounted for this morning. live team coverage, starting with martin savidge, on the ground in the town of west texas. 18 miles away from waco. what is the latest right now? the heavy weather is now hitting the area. it s proving to be problematic. high winds gusting through what is the devastation there and torrential rain, could interfere in some ways with the signal. i want to bring in jill jenkins. she is a nurse, one who responded right away, she is also a resident of the community