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NASHVILLE, Tennessee: A recording of a recreational vehicle issued a chilling warning minutes before the whole thing exploded, rocking downtown Nashville at dawn on Christmas Day and slightly injuring three people in what police described as an “intentional act.” .
“This area must be evacuated now. This area must be evacuated now. If you can hear this message, evacuate now. If you can listen to this message, evacuate now,” was the recording for several minutes, later broadcast on NewsChannel5, Nashville.
Police described the vehicle, parked in the heart of Tennessee’s capital at 6 a.m. CST on Friday, as a motor home, a recreational vehicle of a type that could range from a motor home to a caravan.
Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the ad warned that “the bomb would explode in 15 minutes.”
Around the same time, police received an emergency “gunshot” call in the downtown tourist area, Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron said. After arriving, they called the bomb squad, which was on its way when the explosion occurred.
The explosion devastated the heart of the city, considered the capital of American country music. It destroyed several other vehicles and severely damaged several buildings, sending black smoke into the sky that could be seen for miles.
Firefighters said three people suffered minor injuries.
A vehicle burns near the scene of an explosion in the Second and Commerce area of Nashville, Tennessee, on December 25, 2020 (Phoot: Andrew Nelles / Tennessean.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via REUTERS)
Moments before the blast, police officers went door-to-door in nearby buildings to get residents to safety and signaled a man walking his dog near the vehicle to change direction.
“Obviously, they heard the announcements coming from this vehicle,” Aaron told reporters. “They took them seriously. And they worked to seal off the streets to protect people and we think it worked.” He called the explosion “an intentional act.”
Andrew McCabe, a former deputy director of the FBI, told CNN that an explosion of this size would be investigated as a possible act of terrorism, whether national or international.
Police said it was unclear if anyone was inside the vehicle and the motive was unclear. McCabe said police may have been the target of the blasts since they were called to the scene prior to the blast.
Most of the buildings on the tree-lined street with shops and offices were closed due to Christmas time and holidays.
The blast, which could be heard from miles away and felt nine blocks away, knocked down an officer and caused what was expected to be only temporary hearing loss, the police spokesman said.
“There were trees everywhere, glass everywhere,” Nashville resident Buck McCoy told CNN.
Smoke rises from the site of an explosion in the Second and Commerce area of Nashville, Tennessee, on December 25, 2020 (Photo: Andrew Nelles / Tennessean.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via REUTERS)
Nashville Mayor John Cooper urged people to stay away from the city center while police and federal authorities investigated, with the help of dog bombs and surveillance camera footage.
President Donald Trump was briefed on the blast, a White House spokesman said.
Car bombs in the United States are rare.
A 1995 truck bomb in Oklahoma City killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured hundreds. Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in June 2001 for the attack.
In April 2010, a food vendor thwarted an attempt to detonate a car bomb in New York’s Time Square.
