Video footage has emerged showing the exact moment an RV exploded in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The blast was apparently preceded by a pre-recorded warning, urging bystanders to evacuate.

A bomb squad was heading to the scene — just blocks from the historic Ryman Auditorium, former home of the Grand Ole Opry — when the blast took place around 6:30 a.m., knocking one cop to the ground.

There was no immediate evidence that a shooting had actually taken place, Metro Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said.

Widespread 911 issues in the Nashville area were reported after AT&T wireless and internet service were disrupted on Friday hours following a massive explosion downtown.

AT&T internet and phone service were disrupted in the area about 12 p.m. Friday.

Users around the country reported disruptions in service, but there was a concentration in the Nashville area and Middle Tennessee, growing in reach from Kentucky to Alabama as more reports came in.

© DownDetector.com
An AT&T outage was reported in Nashville and Middle Tennessee hours after an explosion took place near an AT&T facility.

A handful of local police departments reported the outage was disrupting 911 access, including some non-emergency lines, in their jurisdictions. [...]

Nashville International Airport announced Friday afternoon around 2:30 p.m. that the Federal Aviation Administration had halted flights out of the airport until later this afternoon. [...]

An AT&T spokesman confirmed the outage was linked to the explosion:

"Service for some customers in Nashville and the surrounding areas may be affected by damage to our facilities from the explosion this morning. We are in contact with law enforcement and working as quickly and safely as possible to restore service," said Jim Greer, an AT&T representative.

© downdetector.com

Investigators have found human remains in close vicinity of the blast site in Nashville, Tennessee, according to AP and CNN sources familiar with the ongoing probe, but it is unclear if they might belong to a suspect or a victim.

One of the residents is Betsy Williams, 64, who runs a vacation rental business in a building her family owns across the street from where the RV was parked.

She was sleeping in her third-floor apartment on 2nd Avenue North when she was awakened by the sound of gunfire around 4:30 or 5 a.m., she said.

"It sounded like it was from an automatic weapon because it was rapid fire," she said, adding that she heard several loud bursts of gunfire, prompting her to call 911.

Williams' son, who was visiting from Georgia for the holiday and staying in one of the vacation units, noticed the RV parked across the street and thought it seemed suspicious, she said. Then she heard a voice coming from the vehicle warning that it was about to explode.

"It was, 'Evacuate now. This vehicle has a bomb. This vehicle will explode,'" she said.

When the message changed to a countdown, warning that the vehicle would explode in 15 minutes, then 14 minutes, she woke up her 85-year-old sister, who lives in Arizona but was visiting for the holiday, staying in another apartment. She put her cat, Mavis, into a carrier and she and her family got on the elevator around the time the message was giving an 11-minute warning.

They ran to her car, which was parked a block away, and drove across the river to watch from a distance. When nothing happened after 15 or 20 minutes, they started driving back home, she said. That's when they saw the explosion.

"A fireball went up above the AT&T building," she said. "It was a hellacious blast. It was just a big old boom and it blew out the front of those buildings and caused a crater in the street."

Williams and her family are now staying in a hotel with just the clothes they were wearing when they evacuated, unable to buy a change of clothes since the police have the downtown area shut down.

"I said I wanted to spend Christmas day in my pajamas all day long but I didn't really mean that," she joked.

She's not sure when she'll be able to get back home, or if anything will be left.

"It's terrible," she said. "All of my stuff. All of our Christmas presents. We had all of our stuff laid out, ready to have Christmas stockings and Christmas breakfast and open our gifts and spend all day having a really nice, relaxed Christmas, sipping on a little champagne, and now we're not doing any of that."

Still, she said, she's grateful that whoever planted the bomb issued the evacuation warning, enabling her family to escape with their lives.

"Thank God for that," she said.

Williams' spouse Kim Madlom, said they first called 911 about 5:30 a.m. after hearing what sounded like gunshots. About half an hour later, Madlom began to hear audio alerting them to the bomb.

"We went all the way down to our basement area and went out the back door on First Avenue because we were afraid to get on Second Avenue," Madlom said. "Because we also were concerned that we heard gunshots that, you know, we might be, somebody might be trying to lure us out."

Madlom believes whoever set off the bomb had given residents a "grace period" in case they didn't leave before the 15-minute warning was over.

"I do want to say in retrospect, we've talked about it, we feel like those gunshots were a recording as well. Not actual gunshots," Madlom said. "I mean, we feel like it was a recording because there was the sound the pattern to it. By the third time we heard it was exactly the same."

In another piece of footage, the burning object is seen descending quickly towards hills and fields.

In a third clip, the fireball becomes brighter and bigger as it approaches the ground.

Dan Ba, a local, said he witnessed the fireball while taking his child to school.

'It started very small, but three minutes later it became very big and bright,' the parent told Pear Video.

Yu Jun, chief writer of Chinese science website Guokr, told Beijing News that the fireball looked like a bolide, which is a very bright meteor.

The Nanxiang County Government told Red Star News that it had heard of the matter but was unclear of the details.

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