She scrambled to her shoes and keys and pushed her dog down and toward an exit. After we were outside, it all came together.
“Oh my God!” she said. “We can not be up here … I think it’s an explosion!” she said.
Elsewhere, a man passed through a window in his apartment on the 15th floor that he saw.
“There was just a huge explosion in the city center, like a big fireball,” the man told a 911 operator. “Just shake all the windows.”
The 911 calls revealed panic and confusion over several events that morning, including reports of gunshots that police brought there an hour before the explosion, and a loud computerized female voice coming from the RV, warning that it would soon explode.
Here’s a look at how people in the area processed what happened.
‘Shots in the building’
A few hours later, residents called 911 to report that they had heard a series of gunfire, a few minutes apart.
In one call before 5:30 a.m., a man told a dispatcher in a muffled tone that he thought firearms were coming from somewhere inside his four-story apartment building on 2nd Avenue North.
“There were three shots in the building,” he said urgently, but tried to keep his voice. “First about seven or eight minutes ago, and then again about five minutes ago.”
He said he would have no desire to meet the police outside because he was convinced the danger was there.
“They’re in the building,” he almost whispered, referring to the gunshots or whoever fired them.
Police responded on the street around 5:30 a.m. – about an hour before the RV exploded.
So far, police have said they have found no evidence confirming that gunshots were fired.
‘Shots on the street’
Still, a woman, who called 911 a few minutes after the first caller, called 911 from a few buildings away and told a dispatcher that she had heard ‘gunshots on the street’.
“We’ve heard it three times now, and every time it sounds like it’s six or seven shots,” the second caller said. The series of shots were separated by 20 or 30 minutes, she said.
“We did not increase the shades because we are trying not to draw any attention to our windows,” the woman said before the dispatcher made sure her police responded.
Survey ‘says there is a limited time to evacuate’
Around this time, another resident of 2nd Avenue North called 911 about the computerized voice – after hearing it but not understanding who would deliver the message.
‘We have a survey out here that says there is a limited time to evacuate this area … Is that you? Is it law enforcement? ‘ the woman asks a 911 sender.
The voice said something else, she conveyed, “There’s a big bomb in this vehicle.”
“I’m sorry, I’m in a panic,” she said after asking police to check.
The dispatcher said she did not know anything about the voice yet, but she assured the caller that the police were already there. The caller thanks the sender, wishes her a Merry Christmas and ends the call.
“If you can hear this message, you must evacuate now,” the voice said repeatedly around 6:30 a.m. CT.
The RV then exploded.
‘Oh, we get a lot of calls about it’
A few blocks south of the blast, a man said he was a security guard at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, told a 911 dispatcher he had remains of an explosion above a building near the AT&T transmission building. see rising.
“There was a big, fiery explosion on top of the building,” he said. “It scared the shit out of me.”
Meanwhile, the dispatcher with the man looking out of his window from the 15th floor was processing what he had told her.
“Oh, we get a lot of calls about it,” she apparently said after looking up his address.
The man said the view was frightening. “It looks like (inaudible) is still on fire.”
The woman who said her roof collapsed came outside, searching for the rest of the devastation and assuring others the police know.
“911 is coming!” she shouted during her own call.
CNN’s Eric Levenson, Madeline Holcombe and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.