The dust that settled on Nashville in the early hours of Christmas morning wasn’t the kind you’d expect.
Usually, there might be a dusting of snow. But this was the end of 2020, a year like none other, plagued by a global pandemic and disasters like the devastating string of tornadoes that killed 25 Tennesseans in March.
The year went out with a bang.
At 6:30 a.m. on Dec. 25, 2020, a massive explosion warped Christmas Day from a celebration into chaos — before many Nashvillians were even awake.
The result was a jarring scene on Second Avenue, less like a historic downtown thoroughfare and more akin to the “middle of a war zone,” as Nashville Police Chief John Drake described it at the time. Initial estimates said about 41 buildings on and near Second Avenue were damaged, and confusion spiraled as residents and business owners tried to make sense of it all.
This was the aftermath of the downtown Nashville bombing engineered by an Antioch man authorities said killed himself while detonating a bomb inside his RV, parked outside an AT&T switch facility.
Preceding the bombing, a chilling recording played a 15-minute countdown, alternating between warning residents to evacuate the area of the impending explosion and playing the 1964 song “Downtown” by Petula Clark.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, following the bombing, said evidence indicated that the 63-year-old bomber intended to cause “more destruction than death.” He was successful in that pursuit — he killed only himself and injured eight others, but he caused serious damage to dozens of buildings in the area surrounding the blast.
That may be best illustrated by the recovery effort, which hasn’t stopped for more than four years. But now, the end’s finally in sight. There’s just one block left to reopen on the historic street — the one between Commerce and Church streets, at the heart of the devastating blast. By the end of 2025, it’s supposed to be restored.
Once it is, the reminders of a painful day will likely still linger. But, at the very least, the buildings that line Second Avenue, newly restored, will no longer be one of them.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Christmas Day bombing devastated Nashville’s Second Avenue in 2020