She hurried to her shoes and keys and pushed her dog down to an exit. Once outside it all came together.
“Oh my God!” she said. “We can’t be here … I think it’s an explosion!” she said.
Elsewhere, a man related what he saw through a window of his 15th-floor apartment.
“There was just a huge f ** king explosion in the center, like a huge fireball,” the man told a operator. “Just shake all the windows.”
The 911 calls reveal panic and confusion over several events that morning, including reports of gunshots that brought police there an hour before the blast, and a loud computer-controlled female voice coming from the RV, warning it was about to explode.
Here’s a glimpse of how people in the environment processed what happened.
‘Gunshots in the building’
A few hours later, residents called the emergency center to report that they had heard a series of gunshots minutes apart.
In one phone call before 5:30 a.m., a man hushedly told a dispatcher that he thought gunfire was coming from somewhere in 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 low. “First about seven or eight minutes ago, then about five minutes ago.”
He said he wouldn’t feel like meeting the police outside because he was convinced there was danger.
“They’re in the building,” he almost whispered, referring to the gunshots or whoever fired them.
Police responded on the street around 5:30 am – about an hour before the RV was set to detonate.
So far, police have said they have found no evidence of gunshots being fired.
‘Gunshots in the street’
Still, a woman who called the emergency number a few minutes after the first caller and a few buildings away told a dispatcher that she had heard “gunshots in the street.”
“We’ve heard it happen three times now, and each time it sounds like it’s six or seven shots,” said the second caller. The series of shots was 20 or 30 minutes apart, she said.
“We haven’t raised our blinds because we’re trying to avoid drawing attention to our windows,” the woman said before assuring the dispatcher that her police responded.
Record ‘say there is limited time to evacuate’
About this time, another resident of 2nd Avenue North called 911 about the automated voice – after hearing it, but not understanding who was delivering the message.
‘We have a recording here that says there is limited time to evacuate this area … Are you? Is that the police? ‘ the woman asked an emergency center.
The voice said something else, she said, “There is a big bomb in this vehicle.”
“I’m sorry, I panic,” she said, after asking the police to check it.
The dispatcher said she didn’t know about the voice yet, but she assured the caller that the police were already there. The caller thanked the dispatcher, wished her a Merry Christmas and ended the call.
“If you can hear this message, evacuate now,” the voice said repeatedly at about 6:30 a.m. CT.
The camper then exploded.
‘Oh, we get a lot of calls about it’
A few blocks south of the blast, a man who was a security guard at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center told an emergency center that he saw remains of an explosion rising above a building near the AT&T transmission building.
“There was a big, fiery explosion on top of the building,” he said. “It shocked me.”
Meanwhile, the dispatcher processed what he told her with the man looking out his fifteenth-floor window.
“Oh, we get a lot of calls about it,” she said, apparently after looking up his address.
The man said the view was terrifying. ‘It looks like (inaudible) is still on fire.’
The woman who said her roof was collapsing went outside, watched the rest of the destruction, and assured others that the police knew.
“911 is already coming!” she called during her own phone call.
Eric Levenson, Madeline Holcombe and CNN’s Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.