Anderson Cooper Evacuates On-Air During Missile Attack

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and his crew were forced to evacuate during their live broadcast from Israel on Monday (June 23) as air raid sirens reported the imminent threat of a missile attack in the area.

Cooper, 58, was alongside reporters Clarissa Ward and Jeremy Diamond when a warning of an incoming missile in Tel Aviv was heard on the broadcast.

“I should just say that we’re now hearing an alert,” Ward said.

Cooper explained that the siren indicated a 10-minute window before the three continued the broadcast in a bomb shelter.

“So these are these are the alerts that go out on all of our phones when you’re in Israel. It’s a ten-minute warning of incoming missiles or something incoming from Iran,” he said. “So now the location we’re in has a verbal alarm telling people to go down into bomb shelters. So we have about a ten-minute window to get down into a bomb shelter.”

“And we’ll continue to try to broadcast from that, that bomb shelter. And even if we can, on the way down,” he said, asking a crew member to continue filming as they exited the danger zone.

“All right. I think we’re going to head down to the shelters. Chuck, do we have capabilities as we go down?” Cooper asked.

“Just checking your microphones. Be ready in a second,” the crew member responded.

The newscast experienced a brief connection error, but continued as the crew walked through the shelter with air raid sirens continuing to blare in the background. Cooper, Ward and Diamond continued their conversation before a 90-second "red alert" alarm was issued.

“It is a luxury to have a 10-minute warning,” Cooper said.