West End Ave., Nashville, Tenn. Saturday, November 05, 2011NASHVILLE, Tenn.- A heavily traveled road was closed after a bomb scare near Vanderbilt University Saturday afternoon. A suspicious package was the source of the trouble after firefighters responded to a call about smoke in the Caterpillar building.
While the crews were trying to find out where the smoke was coming from, they came across a container that had the word "bomb" written on it. As an immediate precaution, firefighters evacuated the building.
They also blocked off West End Avenue between 20th and 21st streets. After speaking with the Vice President of Caterpillar, crews learned that the company had run a bomb exercise two weeks ago, and that container that had the word "bomb" on it, was actually a prop that had not been removed.
"He said he apologized for leaving it, and I advised him if they ever do that again, to make sure once the exercise was over with to make sure they remove all of their props. Of course he wasn't expecting this situation to come about, and they thought it would be alright to leave them. I don't think that will happen again," said Lenny Manning, District Chief with the Nashville Fire Department.
This false alarm served as a lesson for the company. West End was closed for about an hour.
