The Christmas Day bombing cut off emergency communications across Tennessee. Here’s what’s changed since.

It’s been nearly a year since an RV exploded outside an AT&T data center in downtown Nashville. Damage from the blast resulted in major disruptions to phone and internet service for days, including to 911 call centers — more than 60 in Tennessee.

Both the state and AT&T have been working to prevent similar outages in the future.

Just after the bombing, emergency communications officials were caught off guard by the outages. They said they thought that existing network redundancies would have prevented this from happening.

“I was told that it would switch like that,” Tennessee Emergency Communications Board member Greg Cothron said early this year. “And I don’t know if I just have a faulty memory or not, that’s the one burr under my saddle right now.”

The TECB conducted an after-action report to figure out what went wrong. The results were presented at a meeting in May. (To hear the results, skip to about 14:10.)

Rethinking backup plans

It turns out that AT&T was providing the redundant network connections it was supposed to. And the building did have backup batteries. But those ran out before the company could hook up generators. That’s because the site was an active crime scene, and AT&T didn’t have access for a while.

Now the company is looking into re-engineering how its backup power system works, and has already made some upgrades to the Second Avenue location, according to statements during the May meeting. A year after the bombing, the downtown street is still recovering. NewsChannel 5 reports that the AT&T building is getting an exterior makeover. That will include a life-size recreation of a painting of Second Avenue by local artist Phil Ponder.

BREAKING: As @ATT redesigns their Second Ave data building after the Christmas Bombing, a life size recreation of Phil Ponder’s painting of Second Avenue will be painted on the front facade — paying tribute to the historic street in its original form. AT&T will be paying for it. pic.twitter.com/1N2DX2WbEr

— Chris Davis NC5 (@ChrisDavisMMJ) December 8, 2021

AT&T is also talking to government officials so that they can more easily fix problems like this in the future. And when state legislators reconvene next year, they could consider new rules about who can access crime scenes.

Meanwhile, the state has approved a new contract with AT&T. It calls for providing 911 call centers with at least two redundant, physical connections. Those will be routed through different locations, and there will be wireless connectivity. This should fortify the network and help prevent future disasters from disrupting life-saving calls.

TECB executive director Curtis Sutton was part of the team that met with AT&T to explore network shortfalls after the bombing.

“I’m not trying to get up here and be an apologist for AT&T by any means, whatsoever,” he told the board in May, a few months before the contract was approved. “But they did do a very good job answering our questions.”