and it's going to mean months of disruptions and some evacuations.
Bob O'Brien is outside that meeting right now. Bob?
John, hundreds of people came here to Mount St. Michael Academy in the North Bronx tonight
to be briefed by federal EPA brass and police and fire officials from New York City
and the city of Mount Vernon, which is two blocks away from this school.
The problem is an abandoned warehouse on South 14th Avenue in Mount Vernon,
located right on the Bronx border in a heavily populated neighborhood.
Inside and outside the warehouse, there's an unknown number of deteriorating drums and boxes
containing shock-sensitive explosive substances used in detonating devices.
There's also benzene, gasoline, and a number of other flammable acids and chemicals.
This week, the cleanup will begin, but repackaging and transporting the chemicals is so dangerous
that elaborate staged evacuation plans have been made.
EPA spokesman Rich Cahill explains that the risk area may widen as the cleanup progresses.
We would sort of fan it out to a one-block radius. That would involve about 400 people.
To evacuate? To evacuate. How often?
This would be, depending on how quickly we can move the really dangerous material out of the building,
I would say two or three days a week for a four to eight week period.
And then in the event of a real problem, that would be a fire in the building,
which could cause an explosion.
Then sirens would go off and we would move people out within a four-block radius.
We're talking about 5,000 people.
If there were to be some kind of catastrophic explosion, how wide an area could be affected?
We really can't judge that.
We've estimated that if something were to occur,
we've set the sites for transporting the materials at a radius of 1,000 feet.
So when we transport any of the product in there, we will evacuate up to that 1,000-foot radius
so that there will be nobody in here. We're concerned with their safety.
The owners of the warehouse, two brothers, Charles and Jack Colbert,
are now serving 13-year jail terms for selling hazardous and impure chemicals to a company in Zimbabwe.
For years, lawyers working for the Colbert brothers kept inspectors out of the building.
Those court moves continued even after the Colberts were jailed last summer.
The mess they left behind is terrifying people who live near the warehouse.
Norma Melendez and her family live less than 50 feet away from the rear loading dock.
You have an explosion there, I'm sure. It will hit over here. And then what?
I just don't know what to tell you. We're just afraid. We really are.
And it's possible, probable, that you're going to be asked to evacuate your home several times over the next couple months.
Exactly. And that's an inconvenience for everyone. And I have a family. Where do we go?
I work fine, but what about my elderly parents that are here? Where do I send them?
Hundreds of people inside the Mount St. Michael Academy gym in the Bronx threw hundreds of similar questions at federal and local officials tonight.
Mount Vernon resident Dan Bryant lives one block from the explosive-filled warehouse.
My primary concern would be evacuation. What steps would be taken to evacuate?
What steps would be taken to protect our homes in terms of vandalism, looting, those kind of things?
The biggest question, of course, is can this extremely dangerous cleanup be accomplished without a disaster?
One sure thing, the bile legacy left behind by Charles and Jack Colbert will long be remembered by folks in this area.
Reporting live from the Bronx, Bob O'Brien, Channel 5 News.
All right, Bob. Tonight the police are telling us that a young father threw himself on his...
They may have to leave if things get worse. And as Jim Dolan tells us now, things are already bad enough.
The sign says, danger, and indeed there is danger in the warehouse and for the people who live near it.
Dozens of explosive and toxic chemicals are inside this building dumped with little regard for the families who live near it.
Guards patrol the building to prevent kids from trying to get inside.
Among the chemicals being stored here are ether, nitrocellulose, and petric acid, all of which are explosives.
So, while the chemicals are being removed from here, all of the people within a three-block radius will have to be evac...
...the threat of an explosion and the certainty of an evacuation have all the residents here upset about the way this very dangerous situation
has been handled.
Hundreds of those folks gathered in a nearby high school gym tonight to learn about just how dangerous the warehouse is
and what precautions they should take.
I think it's been going on and I think we've been in the backgrounds and nobody has informed us about what was going on
and we are a little disturbed about it.
Do you think people are...
At this present time we didn't know...
...the property, it's everything to a lot of people in this area.
I found out last night on 11 o'clock news.
It's the first time we've heard about it.
Should you have been told earlier?
And it's been going on for a long time, I hear.
Should you have been told earlier?
Yes.
I think so.
Well, apparently they knew for quite a while from what the flyer that I got.
They knew and I just heard about it yesterday and apparently they knew Morks Feet Tall,
a hundred and... there's a building that has the chemicals, but we don't know what kind of chemicals or anything else.
And I have two small children, so I'm concerned.
Over the next month the dangerous chemicals will be moved and after that these families will be safe.
For now though, they are left to worry and hope that the next 30 days pass quickly and without incident.
Jim Dolan, Channel 7, Eyewitness News.
We're also doing their homes because of a chemical cleanup
and as Channel 2's David Goldstein reports on the night beat, people there are frightened and angry.
They came armed with questions and demanded answers.
Why are the Morks and the small children in that building and that's that's why.
Hundreds of residents of Mount Vernon and the Bronx turned out tonight to question officials of the Environmental Protection Agency.
They are concerned and frightened because they are now living in what is considered to be a risk area.
A risk because of this abandoned warehouse loaded with flammable and explosive materials.
The warehouse is right on the border of Mount Vernon and the Bronx.
5,000 people live in the affected area.
Some may have to be evacuated from a four block radius around the warehouse with only one or two days notice.
Officials say the evacuations of the individual residents could last only a few hours,
enough time for the chemicals to be moved out at various stages.
During that time, residents who live in the affected areas will have to stay with friends or relatives
or move to one of the designated evacuation sites.
It's a dangerous site. It's one that we need to be very concerned about and that's why we're taking every precaution that we are.
But the warehouse is located right in the middle of a residential area and people who live here are concerned.
What happens if this stuff, they drop a drum or something? What's safety? What guarantees do we have?
It's a big fuss in plain English. This condition existed a long time ago.
They've been doing nothing but covering it up for almost maybe 10 months.
The cleanup will start tomorrow and could last eight months. Until then, residents say they'll be living in fear.
In the Bronx, David Goldstein, Channel 2 News, on the night beat.
Two families battling over one idea. While others questioned its possible effectiveness.
I think that that would be a great thing to do or to have done. That's exactly...
...
...but my 87 year old grandmother's a problem. I mean she has to be lifting the two or three people to carry it down.
Today authorities told Channel 2's Chris Borgen that they hope to complete the cleanup as painlessly as possible.
In Riverdale, a case of vandalism. The target, a church nativity scene.
The vandalism was first discovered about two this morning by a bus driver traveling along...
...gusting up to 16 miles an hour. Those gusty winds will die down as we go through tonight.
Low pressure causing that is going to be...
...or will the clue be where Malibu would be?
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It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?
Live from Channel 5 News in New York, this is the Ten O'Clock News.
Good evening. This week, two women have made very emotional, tearful appeals to a judge in New Jersey.
I want my baby. It's the same child called Melissa by the childless Elizabeth Stern.
It's Sarah to Mary Beth Whitehead, a surrogate mom who was paid $10,000 by the Sterns, but changed her mind.
Today was her turn on the witness stand to tell why and how she hopes there will never be another baby Sarah,
another child from a surrogate mom being fought over in court. Barbara Laskin reports.
Mary Beth Whitehead was 16 years old when she got married.
She has two older children, Ryan 12 and Tuesday 10.
Today in room 217, she told the court why she is fighting to keep her third child,
the baby she has named Sarah, the same baby the Sterns have named Melissa.
She said from the time she delivered the child to the time she left the hospital, she couldn't stop crying.
Said Whitehead, it hurt me to know I was hurting the Sterns by not giving them the baby,
but the feeling I had for it overpowered me. She was my child.
At that point, Harold Cassidy, her lawyer, asked for a recess because his client was crying and so distraught.
When Mrs. Whitehead returned to the stand after that brief recess, her testimony was even more emotional.
She described how the Sterns, along with police officers, came to her house last May the 5th.
With Sarah in her arms, she ran out the back door unwilling to surrender her baby.
She said she begged Bill Stern 30 times not to do this.
Finally, she handed the baby over to her husband Rick, who escaped with the child.
She then said she was handcuffed by police and put in a patrol car.
Under cross-examination, Gary Scoliff, the Sterns' lawyer,
contended Mrs. Whitehead was doing this for money, that she was seeking damages in a federal suit.
Whitehead denied that.
I filed that suit so that this stops, that there's no more babies that are in limbo,
that there's no more couples hurt, and there's no more mothers hurt.
It's easy for everybody to be thinking this is a big newsworthy thing,
but the pain is something that you can't, it's unimaginable.
So painful, agree the Sterns, that Baby M cannot be shared.
So it would be in her best interest, that is my daughter and also Marybeth's daughter,
that she either goes and stays with us or she stays with Marybeth, but not to be torn between us.
We will make the argument that if ever there is a case in which there should be complete termination
of all parental rights and all rights of visitation, that the Baby M case is it.
Before the end of today's testimony, we learned that there's a motion before this court
to appoint Richard Whitehead, the legal guardian of Ryan and Tuesday Whitehead,
just for the duration of this litigation.
That's normal in cases where there are children involved,
and it means that their interests too would be represented in this case.
It also means that we could hear from the Whitehead children before this trial is over.
At the Bergen County Superior Court, I'm Barbara Laskin, Channel 5 News.
One of the teenagers arrested in the Howard Beach racial attack was sent to jail today.
Frank Grimes reports.
John Lester is 17 years old.
Today a Queens judge sentenced him to one to three years in jail for possessing a loaded gun last August.
When Lester was convicted of carrying the gun,
Judge Rotker told him that if he stayed out of trouble, he'd sentenced Lester to probation.
But last month, Lester and two other whites were arrested for the racial attack of three black men in Howard Beach.
One of the men, Michael Griffith, was killed by a car as he ran from the group,
who were beating him and the others with sticks and baseball bats.
Today the judge told Lester he was sending him to jail because he broke his promise.
Brian Levinson, Lester's attorney in the attack case, said that wasn't fair.
The fact that a person is arrested, especially in this case, where there's no corroborating affidavit signed by anyone,
there's been no testimony before a grand jury, and none of the alleged victims or any independent witness testified.
Levinson is referring in part to Cedric Sanderford.
He was one of the men attacked with Griffith.
Sanderford, shown here with his attorneys, is not cooperating with the Queens DA's office, which is investigating the case.
Neither is Timothy Grimes, the third victim of the attack.
The case is further complicated by the fact that a detective without an attorney present
took a statement from Lester that outlined his involvement as the alleged ringleader in the attack on the three black men.
Because the attorney wasn't there, it's possible that Lester's incriminating statement may not be admissible as evidence at his trial.
Did John Lester take part in the beating of Griffith, Grimes, and Sanderford?
I don't know. Let me hear some accusations that say he did.
Let me hear Mr. Sanderford. Let me hear Mr. Grimes.
Let me see some independent evidence, and then we'll try it in a courtroom, and you can sit in and evaluate yourself.
Queens District Attorney John Santucci has six months to bring the case to trial.
He says because the victims won't testify, right now he's trying to find more witnesses who can identify the attackers.
He says if his case turns out to be a weak one, he may pass the prosecution duties over to federal...
John!