[Romans:] Now, to a story developing here in New York. At least 57 people were hurt this morning when a ferry crashed into a dock in lower Manhattan. You can see it there. Two people are in critical condition right now. Alison Kosik is live at Pier 11 near Wall Street. Certainly a very scary moment for these commuters coming into the financial district.
[Alison Kosik, Cnn Business Correspondent:] Oh, you can only imagine. I mean, what a scary ending to a ride that started in New Jersey. This was a ferry that started at 8:00 a.m. out of the northern tip of New Jersey and coming in here to lower Manhattan where the financial district is. It was supposed to come in about 8:45. You can see how that ending happened, over my shoulder, that huge gash in the hull. It's just amazing. By the way, right now, investigators are on the boat taking a look around, including crime scene investigators. Now, when that boat came, this is what the New York City transportation commission happen commissioner says happened, that it appears that the boat tried to dock at a first dock, a Dock D, and then missed it and then hit it, rather, and then it hit a second dock, a Dock B and made what the commissioner calls a hard landing. But if you talk to passengers, they'll call it a crash landing. Fifty-seven people were injured, two critical. You know, some of the passengers that we spoke with said that they were flying through the air. In fact, one woman I talked with said she remembers only flying through the air and then waking up on the ground, a woman shaking her, trying to figure out if she's OK. This is a lot of what other passengers said. We talked to some of them. Listen to this.
[Unidentified Male:] It was a sudden crash. Everybody who was standing fell forward. And people who were in their seats got thrown forward. Basically it was, you know, 60 to zero. So I don't know how fast we were going, but, you know, the
[Unidentified Female:] Well, I was actually sleeping. I all of a sudden we just hit, boom, and people were catapulting forward.
[Unidentified Male:] I was standing up and I went backwards and hit chairs and then people landed on top of me. It was normal approach. But then what happened? Just a sudden crash.
[Kosik:] And such a scary way to end a commute. You know, one passenger I talked with said the biggest problem here that caused the biggest injuries in this incident was that a lot of people, as the boat was getting closer to the dock, a lot of people were standing up. They were eager to get on with their day, to get off the boat. So they stand up as the boat is coming in. The problem is, this is a two tier, a two floor ferry, where there's an upstairs and a downstairs. And on that staircase, people were lining up, getting ready to leave the boat. And that is when that crash happened. And a lot of the people came tumbling down the stairs. The Seastreak Wall Street is part of a private ferry system that provides high speed service for commuters that come into Manhattan. And this particular boat can go up to 44 miles per hour. We are not sure how fast the boat was coming when it did crash into the dock. What we have learned from the Coast Guard records, though, that the Seastreak has been involved in several other accidents in the past. The NTSB is on its way with an investigation team. Christine.
[Christine Romans, Cnn Anchor:] All right, Alison Kosik at the South Street seaport. Thank you so much, Alison. The U.S. hit the debt ceiling and is only about two months now before it must raise its borrowing limit or risk a default on its bills. So, what should the country do? Economist and comedian Ben Stein joins us next with his answers for Washington, plus a weigh-in on President Obama's expected pick to replace Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.