US

New Orleans tries to get Bourbon Street back to normal after attack

Joan of Arc parade in French Quarter on Monday will kick off carnival season ahead of Mardi Gras amid criticisms as to why bollards and safety barriers were not in operation in night of ramming and shooting

Da One Way Brass Band performs after the reopening of Bourbon Street in New Orleans: A confidential security report is said to have warned the street was vulnerable to a 'vehicular ramming'. Photograph: Emily Kask/New York Times
Da One Way Brass Band performs after the reopening of Bourbon Street in New Orleans: A confidential security report is said to have warned the street was vulnerable to a 'vehicular ramming'. Photograph: Emily Kask/New York Times
Edward Helmore
Fri Jan 03 2025 - 17:26

A sense of normality was returning to New Orleans on Friday as the city continued to deal with the aftermath of a lethal attack by the Islamic State-inspired military veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who killed 14 and wounded dozens before he was killed in a shootout with police

The scene of the shocking mass murder – the Louisiana city’s famed Bourbon Street nightlife destination – reopened amid tight security on Thursday.

Nearby, the Sugar Bowl college football game between the US colleges of Notre Dame and Georgia, which was postponed by a day in the interest of national security, was played on Thursday evening.

The Joan of Arc parade in the French Quarter is also still scheduled to take place on Monday to kick off carnival season ahead of Mardi Gras, Antoinette de Alteriis, one of the organisers, told the Associated Press. She said they expected close to its typical crowd in the thousands.

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Staff at Felix’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar on Bourbon Street gathered for a prayer just before reopening as makeshift memorials to the victims were erected along the famed street and groups of national guard members were stationed throughout the French Quarter.

“I declare Bourbon Street is open,” the New Orleans police department superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick, said on Thursday, barely 18 hours after the attack. The city’s mayor, LaToya Cantrell, and local religious leaders laid 14 yellow roses on Bourbon Street to honour the victims, while a brass band played I’ll Fly Away.

The restoration of business comes as video from inside Jabbar’s mobile home in north Houston showed a bomb-making station and questions are raised about why safety barriers on the street were not functioning at the time of the early-morning attack.

This has sparked recriminations among local politicians. Louisiana’s lieutenant governor, Billy Nungesser, a Republican, said he was frustrated with “excuses” from Ms Cantrell and her deputies.

According to the New York Times, a confidential security report had warned that Bourbon Street was vulnerable to a “vehicular ramming”.

[ ‘I heard the pops and I just ran’: New Orleans in shock after vehicle attack ]

The assessment, compiled by a New York security firm in 2019, warned that bollards designed to block vehicles from entering Bourbon Street did “not appear to work” and warned “the two modes of terror attack likely to be used are vehicular ramming and active shooting”.

Police officials on Thursday said the city had started work to replace the old barriers in November and said they did not anticipate an attacker would use the footpath to evade a police car blocking the street.

US president Joe Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, are to travel to New Orleans on Monday. – Guardian/AP