Conference begins. Really, the biggest update we have just over the last half hour from Josh Campbell and others, reporting that human remains, believed to be human remains have been found near the site. Reporter thats right. Thats something that will be asked at the press conference in a few minutes. Were expecting to hear from the mayor who is actually instituting a curfew around the area of the blast site. That started at 4 30 local time this afternoon, will go through sunday afternoon as well. This is to try to keep people away from the Downtown Core where investigators are really working on this. Where we are now, media are gathered, where the press conferences are happening is on Second Avenue but several blocks away from where the explosion happened this morning. You can see flashing lights in the distance where they blocked it off. You can also see theres pretty much nobody on the streets. Thats what a lot of downtown looks like now. Granted, it was already pretty quiet in nashville this Holiday Season because of covid19 and other restrictions and such, of course after this, a lot of the downtown area was cordoned off. Ramps, freeway ramps into the downtown area also sealed off today. So we are expecting as you mentioned to hear from the mayor. Were going to be able to ask questions to the fire chief and police chief about the latest in the investigation. Of course, fbi, other federal authorities, are working on the scene but were told will not be present at the press conference coming up. Were having problems with natashas communications. Were awaiting the press conference as she was telling us, a press briefing on the national explosion. For more in the investigation, lets go to senior justice correspondent evan perez. Evan, what are you hearing . Well, anderson, the fbi and the atf are sending in resources to help investigate whats clearly now a vehicle bomb that happened this morning. As you pointed out earlier with your interview with a witness, you know, the timeline is rather strange. You start hearing these reports of gunshots. We dont know whether theyre actual gunshots but we know that people heard what they thought were gunshots and started reporting this to 911. The focus now for investigators is to try to figure out whether that was part of the target, were they trying to draw First Responders and was that part of the plan here or was it another target, perhaps one of the buildings that were badly damaged. One of the buildings you can see in some of the pictures is an at t Exchange Building which is why some of the telecommunications and natashas signal is having trouble, because theres been damage to the at t infrastructure in downtown nashville. At this point, anderson, we know the atf is bringing in the National Response team, bomb technicians, chemical experts. Theyre going to go through the crime scene analyzing pieces of debris there to see if they can figure out what was used to start off the explosion. One of the things thats happened in recent years, anderson, is that the fbi, federal Law Enforcement made it clear to people who sell these types of precursors, chemicals that could be used to make explosives, that they should notify Law Enforcement when somebody is buying large quantities of it. Thats one of the things happening now, the fbi, atf are trying to reach out to the suppliers to see whether anyone bought large amounts of things that could be used to set off Something Like this. As you can see, it is a pretty devastating blast. We were talking to a bomb expert a short time ago that was saying the type of explosive will lead the investigation Different Directions depending what it is, commercial grade, military grade, improvised or homemade type of explosive. Right. Obviously the fact that, anderson, that somebody set this thing up, it appears either remotely or perhaps it was a timed device, those are the things that right now investigators are trying to figure out because obviously somebody was setting off, set this thing off at a time of morning, 6 00, 6 30 in the morning Christmas Morning in an area of downtown thats not exactly the area where the bars are necessarily, a couple blocks away. Perhaps they were trying to avoid casualties. The fact you were hearing messages, one of the messages we heard in some recordings that we have seen on social media says if you can hear this message, evacuate now. Thats why frankly there wasnt more casualties but obviously were trying to see, investigators are trying to see whether the possible human remains that have been found are associated with this incident, whether the person who set this up was still in the rv or whether some innocent bystander was harmed by this. Again, thats part of the investigation at this point. And as we await the Police Briefing which we anticipate happening any moment, it is strange, evan, you talk about the timeline, we talked to Betsy Williams who lived in a building that she when she woke up hearing what she thought were shots looked out, saw the rv, heard the message, eventually evacuated. She said the count down that occurred, 15 minutes until the bomb blast goes off, it was counting down each minute, then they had evacuated, but it didnt explode after the 15 minutes were up. She estimated it probably went on another 15 or so minutes. And then exploded. Hard to understand whether thats just intentional, accidental, it is not known. Right. Exactly. Thats part of the mystery here. Again, if you were trying to draw Law Enforcement in, some of the First Responders, and if this was a bomb aimed at them, why is there this warning that cleared the area out. Police were able to draw people away. There was a witness that reported someone was walking a dog down the street in that area and the police were able to push that person away, tell them to get away from the scene. There was plenty of warning for people to get away from it. Then as you pointed out, the countdown is happening and it doesnt go off. People were starting to come back in to perhaps get a closer look. We heard from police earlier that at least one officer had some hearing damage but pretty much the miraculous thing today nobody was, at least from what we could tell, there are no confirmed fatalities at this point. That clearly could have been worse. Again, reports of human remains. Dont know the details of that. We expect to hear more in the Police Briefing any moment. Want to bring in andrew mccabe, former Deputy Director at the fbi. What kind of forensics will atf and fbi be looking at, and now the human remains, wonder what you make of that. All great questions. Human remains question first. That kind of elevates the sp specter that there may have been someone in the vehicle when the device went off, thats the question everybody wants to answer. With an x employe with an with an explosive device of this size, i dont want to get too graphic, it is unlikely you would find some trace evidence of human remains, but youre not going to find a lot of big things. Heres the mayor. The chief and i had a walking tour of the devastation on Second Avenue. As of, you know, right now, it does, initial evidence does show the Early Morning explosion was a deliberate bomb being set off in our community and the blast caused injuries and catastrophic damage to this very historic part of nashville. Now, at the end of the day, i think all of us, i certainly have gone from relief there were not more casualties, and thats an amazing thing there were not, particularly when people begin to see the devastation on Second Avenue, to relief there were not more casualties to now anger and determination and resolve, resolve to rebuild and not to be deterred and to bring whoever was responsible for this to justice. Now, i have spoken with governor lee who is working with us to have a declaration of a civil emergency, both with the state and then to work with fema to bring all possible resources to rebuild Second Avenue, to go forward, not be deterred by that. I am grateful to state and federal partners to help this important part of nashville rebuild and come back. There are 41 at least separate businesses that are materially damaged by this blast. There will be others as we see the full extent of this. But already, you can tell that it is going to need special help, special resources, and i am grateful to the state partnering with us to commit to rebuilding second. I want to stand with our downtown residents and our Business Owners for whom there was a terrible day, but we are, like nashville faced other challenges particularly this year, we can rebuild and get back to normal. As announced earlier, metro is also establishing a curfew in the explosion impact area from 4 30 today until 4 30 p. M. This sunday. Effected businesses, i would urge them to contact crystal lab at the central precinct to manage coming back to your facilities safely. In the meantime, the curfew area will provide safety and security for businesses in this area and i will go ahead and warn nashville, it will be sometime before Second Avenue is back to normal. It is not going to be the three days of the curfew for Second Avenue. The curfew goes from 4th to the river, James Robertson down to broadway. The police will take special care with that the next few days, and partners at the fbi have a large currency to investigate and need to be able to do that work effectively and well. Now, this mornings attack on our community was intended to create chaos and fear. In this season of peace and hope. But nashville has shown time and time again the spirit of our city cannot be broken. But were not going to rest until those responsible for this outrageous and cowardly attack are brought to justice and the full force of the metro police and partners at the fbi and atf are working together to make sure we will get back to being the safe city that we are. Now, three people have been hospitalized as a result of the explosion and are in stable condition. My prayers are with them and their loved ones tonight. I was able to visit with a fouryearold girl this morning who was had no injury, was saved, but lets just spend a moment in celebration of the six uniformed Metro Police Officers from our central precinct who were at the scene at the time of the blast. These incredible heroes who ran to danger with uncertain outcomes ahead of them were responsible for so many injuries being saved. I have spoken with chief drake. I can report that the officers who were injured by this are recovering well. I would like chief drake to come and spend a little bit evaluating the officers who took swift action, directed people away from danger to save lives, even at the time that their own lives would have been in peril. They are heroes. And i am grateful to them and all of nashvilles First Responders. This is a year we understand what First Responders mean to our community, time and time again, and unfortunately on christmas day, you have another example of that. Now, several downtown residents whose homes were destroyed by the blast, i am inspired by their resilience. And we have to draw inspiration from them as our city to be resilient once again and to get the resources to rebuild and i am grateful to the red cross who opened an aid shelter for those that have been displaced. With that, let me turn this over to the chief and answer questions. I think the message of the day is we are going from relief now to resolve to catch those folks and to rebuild our city, one more challenge in nashville 2020, but we will get through it, were grateful to our First Responders. And you see once again these officers running into danger to help save lives and injury. It is inspiring. And again, the gratitude of our Community Goes to the chiefs force. With that, i would like to turn it to chief drake to come in more specifically about the heroism, great heroism of our department. Thank you. Thank you, mayor cooper. As mayor cooper stated, these officers acts of heroism is tremendous. This morning they received calls for shots fired. Had no idea what they were responding to. Once they arrived in the area, they heard an rv giving out a message, basically saying it was going to detonate within a certain time frame, and countdown would go on. Then it would play music, countdown would start again. Officers immediately began knocking on doors and evacuating residents here, not knowing if the bomb was going to detonate immediately or go off in the time stated. These officers didnt care about themselves, didnt think about that. They cared about citizens of nashville and went in. We would be talking not about the debris that we have here but also maybe potential people. So with that said, the officers saved lives today and their heroism will be noted. Sir, do you believe that either the lyft headquarters or at T Data Center might have been targets of this explosion . We dont know. The investigation is continuing. We dont know the motive at this time. We are following up on all available leads. Is there any time why this happened Christmas Morning, anything that leads you to believe this day was chosen in particular to happen . Dont have anything at this time. We are following up on every lead we can. Why Christmas Morning, we have no idea. Total surprise. When i was briefed this morning, i thought maybe it would be a propane explosion from an rv and turned out to be an intentional act. But were going to follow up on every lead. We are following up on tips that come in now. Well continue the investigative efforts. Have you found human remains in debris . We found tissue we believe could be remains and well just have that examined and then be able to let you know from that point. Im sorry. I cant hear you. Can you speak ags to where it was found and whether it was from inside the rv . The rv was detonated, if there was someone inside, we have no idea. It was a large explosion. The investigation is continuing. Theres matter all over the area. Well continue to examine that to see if it is human remains. Right now, theres no known fatalities that we know of. Just the tissues is what you believe is human tissue in the remains . We believe, could be. But to be certain, we have to examine it, once we know for sure, well let everyone know. Were investigating it. Have you received any information of threat leading up to the city in the coming days, anything to lead you to believe this was something that was coming . We have not received any threats whatsoever. Total surprise. As i said, when we got the call this morning, when i got the call this morning, i thought it would be a camper, someone trying to keep warm, gas leak and explosion. As i got more updates, i found out it was intentional. We had no prewarnings at all. What do you make of the timing of this being there are no people on the street at 6 00 in the morning and that it happened with the announcement playing in advance. Yeah. I dont want to speculate. You would think that this person didnt want to harm people, that maybe just wanted to destroy, but were not sure until we get further into the investigation. Chief, you talk about the 911 impact by this. Several cities had 911 system knocked out because of that. Do you think that was the relation, the intention to knock out 911 service . Were not sure now. We are following up. We are aware some services went down, had at t go down a little while, but thats back up now. To say anything more would be speculation. Im going to ask for that to be the question for the chief, ask him to come and give an update. Good evening. Theres a lot of Unanswered Questions that we cant answer now. Some of the things we want to talk about, talk about Public Safety and fire and police, office of emergency management. The things we do operate off the lip method, live safety incidents, proper conservation. Currently now we know we have done a sweep of all of the buildings to make sure we cleared that theres no personnel that are in the buildings, when we have done all of the hazmat sweeps and things you would imagine, if theres a dirty bomb or something of this nature. Now we have search and rescue teams in. That way we can shore up buildings. We have Structural Engineers there to make sure that the buildings are sound enough to be able to enter in and out of them. Again, it is a lot of moving parts and i know theres a lot of questions again that were trying to answer but at this point theres so many moving parts. Again, we just want to take our hats off to all of the First Responders and all especially with the infrastructure in the situation it is, all of the partners we have in local, federal working together to make sure as the man said we are a resilient city and will keep moving. Thank you. Do you have any idea how many people were evacuated . Great question. We are working on that. The way units are designed, we are trying to get an accurate head count. The red cross is partnering with us and we have mta buses set up throughout the city, so if theres anybody displaced, well take them to the East Park Community Center and from there make sure they have a place to stay for tonight or for as long as needed. In the hundreds . I want to say many people, im sorry. I wont put a number to it. We know there are people that are displaced. Chief, can you speak to Structural Integrity of buildings downtown, given the explosion, is that part of the reason theres a curfew the next few days in case anything absolutely. Office of emergency management, we tried to look at the overall view of the city, making sure everything is sa