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The vehicle was parked in front of an AT&T Inc office, and the blast caused widespread phone, Internet and television service outages in central Tennessee and parts of several neighboring states, including Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia.
A RECORD, THEN AN EXPLOSION
Adding to the cryptic nature of Friday’s incident was the eerie preamble described by police and witnesses: a crackle of gunfire followed by an apparently computer-generated female voice from the RV reciting a minute-by-minute countdown to an imminent attack.
Police rushed to evacuate nearby homes and buildings and called in a bomb squad, which was heading to the scene when the RV exploded.
Later, police released a photo of the motorhome, which they said had arrived in the area about five hours before the explosion.
Authorities said 41 businesses were damaged and three people were hospitalized with relatively minor injuries. City officials praised police officers who they said likely avoided more casualties by acting quickly to clear the area.
Dozens of FBI and ATF agents were inspecting the scene Saturday. Parked cars and trees were blackened, and a burst water pipe that he had been spraying overnight had covered the trees with a layer of ice.
“All the windows went from the living room to the bedroom. The front door broke down, ”Buck McCoy, who lives on the block where the blast occurred, told WKRN. “Blood was coming out of my face, my side, my legs and a little bit from my feet.”
Among those affected by communication problems as a result of the damage to the AT&T building from the blast were police departments, emergency services and Nashville International Airport, which temporarily halted flights on Friday afternoon.
AT&T said Saturday that a fire reignited in the building overnight, forcing it to evacuate, but workers were able to drill access holes into the building to connect generators to critical equipment that they expected to be back online in hours.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee visited the site on Saturday and said in a Twitter post that it was a “miracle” that no one died. In a letter to President Donald Trump, Lee requested a federal emergency declaration to aid relief efforts.
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