Could Better Security Have Stopped the New Orleans Terror Attack?

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, warned that the bollards designed to block vehicles from entering Bourbon Street did “not appear to work.” The New York security firm recommended fixing the barriers immediately, and said that “the two modes of terror attack likely to be used are vehicular ramming and active shooting.”

The attack early Wednesday, which killed 14 people and injured dozens more, has now forced officials in New Orleans to confront whether they did enough to protect one of the country’s most famed tourist spots against an attack foreseen years earlier.

Police officials stressed that the city had started work to replace the old barriers in November, ahead of the Super Bowl next month, and that the work was still ongoing on Wednesday when the attack occurred.

They also said that they had no way of anticipating that the attacker would jump up onto the Bourbon Street sidewalk, evading the police cruiser that was parked there as a security measure.

“It wasn’t something that we expected to account for,” said Capt. LeJon Roberts, commander of the French Quarter police district, at the news conference after the attack.