<story><title>ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville</title><url>https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2020/12/25/att-outage-internet-down-hours-after-nashville-explosion/4045278001/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>elmo2you</author><text>While I&amp;#x27;m only speculating, it could be quite possible that whoever may have wished to damage or destroy the AT&amp;amp;T building, seriously underestimated what these kind of buildings can take (essentially being disguised bunkers).&lt;p&gt;This certainly wasn&amp;#x27;t a small explosion, from the looks of it. But taking out a bunker .. unless you have access to weapons specially build for that purpose, good luck.&lt;p&gt;That AT&amp;amp;T still went down, may just demonstrated an apparent oversight in their emergency procedures for this site. I don&amp;#x27;t know the details, but having backup generators that rely any public infrastructure sounds like a pretty bad choice. That said, maybe those generators first burned through a decent supply of diesel fuel, only to later rely on (in this case absent) gas.&lt;p&gt;I have no idea how much diesel would be required to keep that site running for a prolonged period of time. Maybe such an amount could pose regulatory&amp;#x2F;safety issues on its own. Nonetheless, the sole purpose of emergency generators is to provide power that does not depend on any external factors (maybe aside from air&amp;#x2F;oxygen). So to me this story does sound at least a bit weird.&lt;p&gt;But somebody targeting that building and totally underestimating their chances, even if they may have still succeeded partially (if only by &amp;quot;luck&amp;quot;) .. nah, that can not surprise me at all.</text></item><item><author>tptacek</author><text>AT&amp;amp;T says that their services went down along with the gas &amp;amp; power in the area, as a side effect: the gas shutoff cut off their backup generators. That doesn&amp;#x27;t sound all that targeted.</text></item><item><author>joshuakelly</author><text>This article doesn&amp;#x27;t make this so explicit, but ATT infrastructure appears to be the intentional target of the bombing. You can see the building in the helicopter shot at the top of the NYTimes article on the story: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;nashville-explosion.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;nashville-explosion.ht...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Obviously a telecommunications&amp;#x2F;switch hub, with it being a large windowless building in a downtown core.&lt;p&gt;The other thing that&amp;#x27;s particularly odd is the fact that the attackers appear to have broadcasted some sort of warning or evacuation message from the site of the bombing prior to the explosion.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jeffbee</author><text>Facilities don&amp;#x27;t really keep that large of an inventory of fuel on site. Usually once they start running they have to call for fuel immediately and be regularly refueled until power is restored. They don&amp;#x27;t have a week of fuel or anything like that.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see why natural gas is such a bad backup for utility electric. It doesn&amp;#x27;t share fate with the electric grid and it&amp;#x27;s buried. Seems pretty good.</text></comment>
<story><title>ATT services down due to bombing in Nashville</title><url>https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2020/12/25/att-outage-internet-down-hours-after-nashville-explosion/4045278001/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>elmo2you</author><text>While I&amp;#x27;m only speculating, it could be quite possible that whoever may have wished to damage or destroy the AT&amp;amp;T building, seriously underestimated what these kind of buildings can take (essentially being disguised bunkers).&lt;p&gt;This certainly wasn&amp;#x27;t a small explosion, from the looks of it. But taking out a bunker .. unless you have access to weapons specially build for that purpose, good luck.&lt;p&gt;That AT&amp;amp;T still went down, may just demonstrated an apparent oversight in their emergency procedures for this site. I don&amp;#x27;t know the details, but having backup generators that rely any public infrastructure sounds like a pretty bad choice. That said, maybe those generators first burned through a decent supply of diesel fuel, only to later rely on (in this case absent) gas.&lt;p&gt;I have no idea how much diesel would be required to keep that site running for a prolonged period of time. Maybe such an amount could pose regulatory&amp;#x2F;safety issues on its own. Nonetheless, the sole purpose of emergency generators is to provide power that does not depend on any external factors (maybe aside from air&amp;#x2F;oxygen). So to me this story does sound at least a bit weird.&lt;p&gt;But somebody targeting that building and totally underestimating their chances, even if they may have still succeeded partially (if only by &amp;quot;luck&amp;quot;) .. nah, that can not surprise me at all.</text></item><item><author>tptacek</author><text>AT&amp;amp;T says that their services went down along with the gas &amp;amp; power in the area, as a side effect: the gas shutoff cut off their backup generators. That doesn&amp;#x27;t sound all that targeted.</text></item><item><author>joshuakelly</author><text>This article doesn&amp;#x27;t make this so explicit, but ATT infrastructure appears to be the intentional target of the bombing. You can see the building in the helicopter shot at the top of the NYTimes article on the story: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;nashville-explosion.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;nashville-explosion.ht...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Obviously a telecommunications&amp;#x2F;switch hub, with it being a large windowless building in a downtown core.&lt;p&gt;The other thing that&amp;#x27;s particularly odd is the fact that the attackers appear to have broadcasted some sort of warning or evacuation message from the site of the bombing prior to the explosion.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nr2x</author><text>A guy working in this building told me they had showers to clean off radioactive fallout as the building itself could stand up to a bomb. Guy said “you’d be fucked either way” and laughed.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;33_Thomas_Street&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;33_Thomas_Street&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>