Governor Andrew Cuomo says two convicted murderers used power tools to cut through steel walls and escape from a maximum-security prison near the Canadian border Saturday morning.
Cuomo says 48-year-old Richard Matt and 34-year-old David Sweat are "dangerous individuals" who escaped through an elaborate plot. He told ABC News Sunday morning that they broke out of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora by shimmying through a steam pipe.
Officials are trying to determine where they got the power tools. Cuomo said the two "had to be heard" as they cut through steel and escaped.
Roadblocks were set up in the area of the prison, about 20 miles from the Canadian border. Bloodhounds and helicopters were being used to track down the men.
Cuomo said officials were reaching out to the families of the men's victims.
Sweat was convicted in the slaying of a Broome County sheriff's deputy in 2002. Matt -- from Niagara County -- is serving 25 years to life for the beating death of a North Tonawanda man in 1997.
Authorities say they were discovered missing from the prison Saturday morning.