I woke up early Christmas morning. Coffee was on and I had just posted a Christmas greeting to my Twitter followers. I skimmed my feed and, while sipping my first cup of coffee, the first posts began appearing in my feed saying an explosion had occurred in Nashville, Tennessee. The information coming out of Nashville was minimal, but one thing was for certain: this was not a gas line or a propane tank on an RV exploding.
Local television began broadcasting images of the scene and reported that three people were transported the hospital, but no fatalities had been reported. Since then, the police have reported finding what appears to be “human remains”. It’s unknown if the remains belong the bomber or one of his victims.
Prior to the explosion, gunshots were reported to police and the police responded to the area of the gunshots, a historic area of Nashville. That’s when they discovered a “suspicious vehicle”. The bomb squad was dispatched and residents were evacuated.
Who was the target? The RV was parked outside the AT&T communications hub, which provides services to much of the southeast United States. The rest of the buildings are small businesses and residences. Common sense points me to AT&T.
The RV was emitting a pre-recorded message saying there was a bomb and to evacuate the area. That message continued until 6:30 am when the vehicle exploded. There’s no doubt this was a planned and strategic act.
This chilling security video was widely distributed throughout the day. Not only do you see the bomb detonating, but you can also hear the final warning, “if you can hear this message, evacuate now”.
Why were people warned? This wouldn’t be the first time people were warned before a bombing. In recent history, the I.R.A. sent warnings out before bombing their targets. In this case, the bomber had a target and I believe the target was communications infrastructure – AT&T.
Eye witness accounts began surfacing and gave us a view of how devastating the bombing was.
Later in the day, the police and FBI released this security camera photograph of what they believe is the RV used in the bombing.
As of now, there’s more questions than answers. Who did this? Was it a foreign government? Was he a “lone wolf” or a disgruntled employee of AT&T? Is this the only event that will take place or will there be others? The fact is, this investigation will take days, if not months, to complete and we may never have all of the answers.
Stay aware, stay safe and take care of each other.