NEW ORLEANS – There remains no mistaking what happened here in the French Quarter, in the heart of this old city, in the opening hours of 2025.
Around 3:15 a.m. CST on Jan. 1, a Texas man drove his pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street, killing 14 and injuring nearly 60 others. Two police officers were shot before the attacker was killed.
Fast forward to Sunday night, a full week before the Kansas City-Philadelphia Super Bowl at the Superdome. A dump truck blocked Bourbon Street off Canal Street. Large metal barricades were stationed at intersections. Police officers in pairs and groups of six monitored the foot traffic.
By Monday morning, more scheduled road closures, choking off traffic.
Newly installed security barriers are seen on Bourbon Street next to a memorial for victims of the Jan. 1 car attack ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Friday.
All in the name of making sure what happened on 1/1/25 isn’t repeated this week as the world sports stage shifts here to host an 11th Super Bowl.
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“In those last (34 days), we have worked seamlessly with the NFL, with our federal partners and with our local agencies to ensure that any gaps we could find inside the city and targets we could harden, we did,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said during a news conference Monday night at the New Orleans Convention Center.
Landry is right: This is an all-hands-on-deck effort. Just look at the podium for the aforementioned briefing. Federal (FBI and Homeland Security). State. And city.
At every Super Bowl, always staying alert and diligent and on-edge goes with the territory. You see something, you say something. You pack your patience for the security lines and enjoy the usual warm-weather climate.
New Orleans takes tremendous pride in hosting a Super Bowl. The Uber drivers wanted to know where I was from, if I needed any restaurant recommendations and a few tricks to avoid the major gridlock. The city was handing out necklace beads at the convention center Monday morning.
“It’s What We Do,” read the city’s slogan during a briefing to kick off the week.
The first indoor Super Bowl was here. The first post-9/11 Super Bowl was here without incident. The city has 27,000 hotel rooms within the downtown area, is walkable and has a convention center roughly the size of Orchard Park. The NFL loves this place, even if it’s not for everybody (hand raised).
Twelve years ago, the last New Orleans Super Bowl was panned because of a 34-minute in-game delay because of a power failure. The city promised the NFL there would not be a repeat and was awarded this game in 2018. The playbook they had while planning for this week was revised after the Jan. 1 terror attack.
Nearly 700 Homeland Security employees will be in New Orleans, 450 members of the FBI and 350 National Guard troops will work alongside more than 20 federal, state and local agencies.
“I am confident the safest place this weekend will be the areas under the security umbrella that has been put together,” NFL chief security officer Cathy Lanier said.
Within the French Quarter, Landry signed an executive order to provide an enhanced security zone.
“We think it will make the Quarter an even safer place,” Landry said.
The early indications, before the real flood of people arrives midweek, is New Orleans has a sound plan.
