Protective barriers intended to prevent terrorist attacks along New Orleans’ Bourbon Street were being replaced and were not set up when a truck fatally plowed into New Year’s revelers early Wednesday.
The stainless-steel bollards were removed in November as part of an overhaul of the security system, Nola.com reported.
Emergency services attend the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon Street, Wednesday Jan. 1, 2025. APThat overhaul was due to take three months, and was brought on by what French Quarter Management District head Bob Simms called an “ineffective” old system.
“The track was always full of crap, beads and doubloons and God knows what else. Not the best idea,” Simms told Nola.com. “Eventually everybody realized the need to replace them. They’re in the process of doing that, but the new ones are not yet operational.”
Authorities said a police SUV was parked at the intersection where Shamsud Din Jabbar started the attack — but surveillance video showed he was able to drive around it by mounting the sidewalk.
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A map of the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans.
At lest 15 people were killed when the F-150 Lightning EV truck sped down Bourbon Street just after 3 a.m., and it was only stopped after it slammed into a crane blocking the way.
Cops immediately swarmed the truck and killed Jabbar in a gun battle.
Two witnesses said that they were surprised to see the barricades were not up during the New Year’s festivities.
“Those barricades were not up, period,” Jimmy Cothran, a New Orleans resident, told CNN. “They had the flimsy orange ones that you could just push over with your finger. We actually thought it was kind of odd.”
Police investigators surround a white truck that has been crashed into a work lift in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 1, 2025. AFP via Getty Images“The fact that they never raised them, that’s how this guy was able to get down Bourbon Street so quickly and cause so much damage because there’s other barricades past the Canal and Bourbon intersection,” Cothran said. “If that barricade is up, that’s a wrap. That’s your end.”
Jose Lieras, who was visiting New Orleans from Los Angeles for the celebrations, told WDSU-TV he was surprised to see vehicles driving on the famed Bourbon Street, where hundreds were gathered.
The stainless-steel bollards were removed in November as part of an overhaul of the security system, Nola.com reported. Earthcam“I don’t know why they’re still letting cars go through Bourbon Street. Even last night, which I was there, there was still like, at midnight, 1 in the morning, there’s still cars driving by, even though there’s people walking all over the street. You’ve got to dodge cars,” he said. “It should always be blocked off at nighttime because something like this could have happened.”
