As the sun was coming up on December 25, 2020, millions of people around the United States were blessed with the ability to wake up with their families on Christmas morning, and open gifts with their families by the light of their Christmas trees. The people of Nashville were not so fortunate. At 4:30am, a local resident heard gunfire outside her downtown building on 2nd Ave. At 5:32am, she heard another round of gunfire and called the police. By 5:38, the police arrived and found a suspicious RV parked on 2nd Ave, with an audio recording playing from inside the vehicle. The recording was warning people to evacuate the area, because the vehicle was going to explode. Police began to go door to door, waking people up, and evacuated the area. At 6am a 15 minute countdown began, which alerted residents to leave the area, due to an impending explosion. Between warnings, speakers on the RV played the 1964 song “Downtown” by Petula Clark. At 6:30am, the bomb exploded, killing the 63 year old bomber who was inside the vehicle the whole time.

I was fortunate enough to have flown home to Pensacola, FL to see my family for Christmas. My brother was the first to read about the explosion and notified us while we were eating breakfast. The following are photos taken on December 27.