Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced this Saturday that he requested an emergency declaration from President Donald Trump after Friday's powerful explosion in downtown Nashville, the state capital.
"The
severity and magnitude
of the current situation is such that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the affected state and local governments," Lee said in a statement.
Also,
major communication outages
continue to affect large areas of Tennessee this Saturday.
The
Tennessee and Kentucky police emergency systems,
as well as the Nashville COVID-19 Community Helpline, remain down as an AT&T central office was affected by the blast.
[Human Remains and Recording: Nashville Explosion Raises New Questions]
The AT&T company said the restoration efforts are facing several challenges, including a fire that "restarted overnight and led to the evacuation of the building."
This has forced his teams to work with security and structural engineers and to drill access holes to the building to reconnect power.
The company assured that it had installed
two temporary cell towers
in the city center to provide service and that other portable sites were being installed.
This image taken from a surveillance camera provided by the Nashville Metro shows a recreational vehicle that was involved in the explosion on Friday, December 25, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Nashville Metro via AP
"Our teams continue to work day and night on recovery efforts from yesterday morning's explosion in Nashville," the company said in a statement Saturday.
At least 41 buildings were damaged,
and communications systems, including home and cell phone service and 911 call centers, failed across the state, Lee said.
Kentucky and northern Alabama were also affected, he
said.
The blackouts had even briefly landed flights at Nashville International Airport, but service continued normally as of Saturday.
[The explosion in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning: authorities believe it was "intentional"]
According to Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake, police officers responded to a report of gunfire on Friday when they came across a motor home that broadcast a
message over a loudspeaker warning that a bomb would explode in 15 minutes.
The police evacuated nearby buildings and called the bomb squad.
The motorhome exploded shortly after.
Officers have said they believe
the explosion was intentional but do not yet know the motive or purpose.
"This morning I toured the scene of the attack," Lee wrote on Saturday.
"The damage
is shocking
and it is a miracle that no resident died," he added.
They will search the security cameras in the area for more details to help with the investigation REUTERS
Nashville authorities said Friday night they
found tissue that could be human remains
in the area of the blast.
No deaths have been confirmed from the incident so far, said City Mayor John Cooper, Police Chief John Drake and Fire Department Director William Swann.
The tissues found will be examined to determine more details, according to the mayor, who added that the three people who were hospitalized for injuries are stable.
Mayor Cooper declared a
state of emergency
in the city center in effect until December 27.
With information from AP.
