NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – Extensive communications disruptions continued to affect large areas of Tennessee on Saturday as federal investigators combed the site for clues to the explosion of a RV that shook sleep in downtown Nashville on Christmas.
Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama police emergency systems, as well as Nashville’s COVID-19 community telephone line and a handful of hospital systems, remained out of service due to the AT&T headquarters affected by the explosion. The building contained a telephone exchange with network equipment, but the company did not want to say exactly how many people were affected.
Meanwhile, investigators closed the heart of the tourist scene in downtown Nashville, an area full of honky-tonks, restaurants and shops, as they walked through broken glass and damaged buildings to learn more about the blast. While authorities are confident this was a deliberate act, they have been a mother publicly saying who did it and why.
Mayor John Cooper has applied a curfew in the city center until Sunday through an executive order to limit public access to the area.
AT&T said restoration efforts face several challenges, including a fire that “re-ignited overnight and caused the building to be evacuated.” This has forced their teams to work with security and structural engineers and drill access holes to the building to reconnect power.
“Our teams continue to work 24 hours a day on the recovery efforts from yesterday morning’s explosion in Nashville,” the company said in a statement Saturday. “We have two portable cell sites operating in downtown Nashville, with numerous additional portable sites deployed in the Nashville area and the region.”
Gov. Bill Lee on Saturday asked the White House for federal assistance because of the “severity and magnitude” of the impact of the blast. At least 41 buildings were damaged and communications systems, including mobile and residential services and 911 call centers, failed statewide, he said. Kentucky and northern Alabama were also affected, he said.
Ray Neville, president of technology at T-Mobile, said on Twitter that service outages affected Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Birmingham and Atlanta. “We are working diligently with our partner in the restaurant. Sorry for the inconvenience. Updates to follow, “he said in a tweet last Friday.
The outages even had brief ground flights to Nashville International Airport, but service continued as normal as of Saturday.
According to Nashville Metro Police Chief John Drake, police officers responded Friday to a report of gunfire when they encountered the RV sounding a warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes. Police evacuated nearby buildings and called the bomb squad. The RV exploded shortly after.
Law enforcement officials have said they believe the blast was intentional, but that they still know no motive or purpose.
“I went to the bombing site this morning,” Governor Bill Lee said Saturday. “The damage is shocking and it is a miracle that no resident died. (First Lady Mary) and I continue to pray for those who suffered injuries from the explosion. “
Lee had been in quarantine because his wife hired COVID-19. However, the Republican said both Mary and he had given a negative, allowing them to visit downtown Nashville. Lee said the first lady had “fully recovered.”
On Friday, Drake told reporters that site investigators “found tissues that we thought could be debris, but we’ll examine it and let you know at that time.” No new information on the fabric was made available on Saturday.
Three people taken to hospitals in the area for treatment were in stable condition on Friday evening.
The FBI has taken the lead in the investigation, said agency spokesman Joel Siskovic. Federal investigators from the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are also involved in the investigation. The FBI is the primary law enforcement agency responsible for investigating federal crimes, such as explosive violations and acts of terrorism.
In West Virginia, a hospital system said Saturday it was experiencing network connection problems directly related to the Nashville explosion. South Charleston-based Thomas Health, which operates two hospitals, said on its Facebook page that it did not have an estimated restoration time.
Similarly, Sumner Regional Medical Center in Gallatin, Tennessee, said on its Facebook page that it operated without access to some of its systems, including medical records.
“We prepared for situations like this and immediately moved to the paper records. There has been no interruption in the provision of patient care or any cause for concern over this temporary problem, ”the center said in a post Friday.
___
Associated Press writer John Raby contributed to this report from Charleston, West Virginia.