HMM: “A recreational vehicle parked in the deserted streets of downtown Nashville exploded early Christmas morning, causing widespread communications outages that took down police emergency systems and grounded flights at the city’s airport. Authorities said they believe the blast was intentional. . . . AT&T said the affected building is the central office of a telephone exchange, with network equipment in it. The blast interrupted service, but the company declined to say how widespread outages were. . . . The AT&T outages site showed service issues in middle Tennessee and Kentucky, including Bowling Green about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Nashville. Several police agencies reported that their 911 systems were down because of the outage, including Murfreesboro and Knox County, home to Knoxville about 180 miles (290 kilometers) east of Nashville. The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily halted flights out of Nashville International Airport because of telecommunications issues associated with the explosion.”

This reminds me a bit of the mysterious shot-up substation in Silicon Valley a few years back, like it’s someone trying to demonstrate a capability to monkeywrench things. Stay tuned.

Also, if your 911 system can be taken down by an explosion 180 miles away, your 911 system sucks.