NEW ORLEANS — The second-guessing began before the bodies had been cleared from the debris of the deadly Bourbon Street truck attack.
A law firm signed up survivors of what it called a “predictable and preventable” tragedy. Politicians parried blame for the latest mass-casualty event in New Orleans’ infamous adult playground. And investigations targeted the ill-fated removal of the street’s bollards, steel columns designed to restrict vehicle access.
But as the city seeks to recover and beefs up security ahead of next month’s Super Bowl and Carnival season, law enforcement and community leaders are confronting an existential question as old as the entertainment district: Can Bourbon Street be protected in a way that preserves its unique, round-the-clock revelry?
“Once we start to hear what it’s actually going to take to secure the French Quarter and the Mardi Gras parade routes, I don’t know if this city is going to have an appetite for all that,” said Rafael Goyeneche, a former prosecutor who is president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission watchdog group.
“If we try to make New Orleans as secure as an airport, people aren’t going to like it,” he said. “This isn’t Disney World.”
Shock and grief have given way to finger-pointing over whether additional security could have stopped — or mitigated — the Islamic State group-inspired attack, which killed 14 people when Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a pickup through a New Year’s crowd.
In the difficult days since, proposals for new safety measures have ranged from banning vehicular traffic in the French Quarter to turning the historic neighborhood into a state park.
Many locals who depend on tourism agree that something has to give.
“It’s just too wide open. It’s too trustworthy down here,” said Bryan Casey, 53, a native New Orleanian who has worked on Bourbon Street since the late 1990s and waits tables at Galatoire’s, an upscale restaurant that opened in 1905. Casey and his colleagues wiped blood off the wall after the attack as bodies lay mangled in front of the establishment.
Bourbon Street should have been made into a pedestrian mall long ago, Casey said: “There’s people watching and they’re going to get you, so you got to be careful.”
Much of the immediate focus has centered on the absence of the bollards, which had stopped working reliably and were being replaced ahead of the Super Bowl.
City leaders have been criticized for the timing of that project and failing to implement a suitable replacement during their repair. A lawsuit filed Thursday on behalf of victims alleged the city “had years of opportunities” to patch up vulnerabilities.
But a half dozen current and former law enforcement officials in Louisiana described the bollard issue as a red herring, saying that even if they had been functioning they may not have prevented the attack given how hell-bent Jabbar appeared on creating carnage.
The broader safety conundrum is more complex, they said, given the quarter’s dense, alcohol-fueled crowds and structural challenges inherent to an early 18th-century neighborhood built for hor