Live updates: New Orleans truck attack, Could Better Security Have Stopped the New Orleans Terror Attack City officials were warned in 2019 that the bollards designed to block vehicles did "not appear to work." They were being fixed when a truck rammed through Bourbon Street on Wednesday.
Five years before a man in a pickup mowed down dozens of New Year's revelers in New Orleans, a confidential security report warned that the iconic Bourbon Street tourist strip was vulnerable to a "vehicular ramming" attack.
The assessment, prepared by a security firm in November 2019 for the group that manages the city's French Quarter, said that the bollards blocking cars from driving up onto Bourbon Street "do not appear to work." The New York security firm advised the NOLA BCP immediately to correct those barriers and wrote that "the two modes of terror attack likely to be used are vehicular ramming and active shooting.".
The assault, early Wednesday, killing 14 and wounding dozens, has brought a question of what officials in New Orleans did enough to protect one of the nation's most celebrated tourist spots against an attack foreseen years earlier.
Police officials said that the city started to replace the old barriers in November ahead of next month's Super Bowl and that, as of Wednesday, when the attack occurred, much of the replacement work was not yet done.
They said they could not know that the attacker would spring up onto the sidewalk along Bourbon Street, which he sidestepped walking in front of a police cruiser parked there.
"It wasn't something that we expected to account for," said Capt. LeJon Roberts, commander of the French Quarter police district, at a news conference shortly after the attack.
Some security experts said New Orleans had left Bourbon Street dangerously vulnerable. And they pointed to other cities, including New York and Chicago, that had used other strategies to try to ensure safety.
"This should be no surprise to anyone who's ever been tasked with protecting an area dense with pedestrian traffic," said Don Aviv, chief executive of the security firm Interfor International, which performed the 2019 security assessment. "The French Quarter is the perfect target."
It put up its first metal security barriers along Bourbon Street in New Orleans in 2017, a year after scores of people were killed in a terrorist truck attack on a Bastille Day parade in Nice, France.
New Orleans truck attack
But Rafael Goyeneche, the head of the city's independent Metropolitan Crime Commission, a watchdog and advisory group, said those bollards, intended to keep vehicles from smashing into buildings and people, quickly got jammed up with Mardi Gras beads and ceased functioning.
"Rather than fix them, they just ignore it," he said in an interview.
After Interfor came up with an assessment in 2019, French Quarter Management District, the caretaker of that area, prepared a summary released in August of 2020.
Though public release focused mainly on complaints aired publicly about French Quarter rowdiness and crime-and the terror threats are but mentioned only once-an even more potentially frightening danger-related specifically to vehicular rams-its malfunctioning bollards-have been made only in a report not published in the public sphere.
The French Quarter did bolster security in response to Interfor's report, which included a greater police presence, according to Christian Pendleton, former chair of the French Quarter Management District.
The city was in the process of installing a new bollard system, Mr. Pendleton said, but even if that work had been completed in time, it might not have been enough to prevent Wednesday's attack.
"Evil people do evil things," Mr. Pendleton said.
By Thursday afternoon, Bourbon Street had reopened with a visible, though not heavy, police presence. Knots of police officers, state and local, stood at intersections on the side streets leading to Bourbon Street, manning police cars and portable metal police barricades blocking vehicle access.
Pedestrians strolled under bright sunshine along the bars where the assailant attacked, and a spontaneous brass band broke into music.
"I am highly surprised by how many people are out here," said Mary Pond, who pours drinks at Mango Mango Daiquiris. "It's as if nothing occurred."
Police cars, on the other hand, were also blocking the highway to the Superdome to the west because that is the place where Sugar Bowl was set to take place later that afternoon.
Security experts conceded it was impossible to protect every sidewalk and street party in America from a determined vehicle attack. In recent years, scores of pedestrians have been killed at Christmas markets in Germany, a bike path in Manhattan, a sports center in China, and others. The Islamic State, which inspired the New Orleans attacker, has called for vehicle attacks against civilians.
In response, cities deploy dump trucks and fire engines to shield parades, protests, and other high-profile public gatherings or set out concrete jersey barriers or temporary plastic barriers filled with water.
In Chicago, the salt trucks stand blocking the incoming vehicles. The bollards in the pedestrian areas are decorated and made from steel. Big concrete flowerpots carrying tulips, daisies, and a tumble of others are used for security purposes preventing cars from accessing the city's world-famous Magnificent Mile, a famous crime prevention by way of design in the environment.
"We want it to be aesthetically pleasing," said Daniel O'Shea, a former high-ranking official for the Chicago Police Department on Thursday. "We try and recommend measures that you wouldn't think are security measures but actually are-and perform the beautification of Michigan Avenue as well."
Concrete blocks and police vehicles are employed in New York to block the streets of cars during special occasions such as the Thanksgiving Day Parade and New Year's Eve, according to Kenneth Corey, a former chief of department.
He said that New Year's Eve, sand trucks are placed on larger thoroughfares like 42nd and 57th Streets and on the avenues. And anyone coming into that area goes through a metal detector, Mr. Corey said.
But "it is very difficult to guard against a 'lone wolf' style of attack," he said.
Washington, too, has made an effort. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law established a $25 million fund for cities to install bollards as protection against accidental crashes and terrorism threats. But Congress hasn't actually appropriated the money, said Jake Parker, senior director for government relations at the Security Industry Association.
The city of Waukesha, Wis., bought bollards after a vehicular attack on a Christmas parade in 2021 that killed six people and injured dozens. But they are expensive to buy and maintain, said the mayor, Shawn N. Reilly.
Since the attack in Waukesha, officials have shortened the parade to minimize the number of driveways that touch the route. The city no longer holds the parade on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, a week when many police officers, firefighters and other city employees have headed north for deer hunting, causing a work force shortage.
Crowds still turn out for parades and other events, including a summer outdoor gathering known as Friday Night Live, for which barricades intended to stop cars have provided some consolation to the public.
"I still believe people want to be a part of their community, go to parades, go to events, have a good time," Mr. Reilly said. "We are going to be in a really bad place if the end result is that we have no gatherings of lots of people."
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