NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans locals and visitors have been questioning why a temporary barrier intended to prevent cars from entering Bourbon Street, where a terrorist killed 14 people by driving a truck through a New Year’s crowd in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, was set down instead of up, allowing vehicles to pass.
The temporary metal barriers were installed on Bourbon Street and other areas of the French Quarter in mid-November as the city was in the process of removing old bollards and replacing them with stainless steel bollards. That work was expected to continue through January.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill directed Fox News to the New Orleans Police Department for questions about the barricades but said her office “will be evaluating everything over the next few weeks in preparation for the Super Bowl.”
“Local law enforcement was the lead agency for preparations in advance of the Sugar Bowl,” Murrill said. “Those questions should be directed towards the New Orleans Police Department. We can assure you that we will be evaluating everything over the next few weeks in preparation for the Super Bowl.”
The New Orleans Police Department could not immediately be reached for comment.
Official recommendations for New Orleans security measures in the French Quarter, as part of a $2.3 billion infrastructure project that began in 2017, included the installment of new bollards on Bourbon Street to prevent mass casualty events that the FBI identified as a potential threat in the popular tourist area.
“The French Quarter is often densely packed with pedestrians and represents an area where a mass casualty incident could occur,” a 2017 report states. “This area also presents a risk and target area for terrorism that the FBI has identified as a concern that the City must address. Following the attacks in Nice, France; in London, England; and the recent NYC Times Square incident that cited bollards saved lives, it has become clear how popular tourist areas can be threatened by attackers with vehicles and weapons.”
The report recommended that Bourbon Street close to vehicular traffic, “with the exception of emergency vehicles, at designated times to be determined as one of its risk mitigation measures.”
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Security recommendations for the area included street cameras, a central command center, better lighting and high-quality bollards that are also used by the U.S. government near its official buildings.
“When closed, the bollards will prevent access to Bourbon St by an uncontrolled vehicle, provide refugee areas on Bourbon St for pedestrians from traffic while maintaining access to Bourbon St via the cross streets for emergency responders, and eliminate the need for law enforcement personnel to man barricades, freeing up more resources to prevent crime,” the report states.
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Former FBI official Bill Daly, a security and risk management adviser, told Fox News Digital that the “Achilles’ heel” in the Jan. 1 tragedy was that the temporary measures used on New Year’s Eve did not provide the same level of protection as was previously intended, designed and envisioned in the 2017 report.
“Temporary barricades are used extensively. They’re used, for instance, by the New York City Police Department in Times Square, to close off all the side streets leading to Times Square,” Daly said. “They use cement blocks that they actually put on the sidewalk and in the middle of the street as temporary barricades, and some place vehicles. They use garbage trucks, they use dump trucks, they use all kinds of heavy vehicles, and sometimes just police cars to block the road. But it’s also important to block the sidewalk.”
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Multiple business employees located near the entrance of Bourbon Street told Fox News Digital that authorities installed temporary barriers to block traffic at certain street entrances in the French Quarter around Christmastime as the city planned to repair and upgrade its permanent barriers.
However, the barrier situated at the intersection of Canal and Bourbon streets was not upright on New Year’s Eve, meaning vehicles could drive over the flattened barricade and onto Bourbon Street from Canal Street. A video shows Jabbar driving the rented pickup truck off Canal Street and around a police vehicle blockade at the entrance of Bourbon Street before plowing into revelers.
Fox News has learned since the Jan. 1 attack that New Orleans had more barriers available that could have prevented or limited the scope of a terrorist attack, though New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said in a press conference afterward that she was unaware the barriers existed.
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“Actually, we have them,” she said of the barriers. “I didn’t know about them, but we have them, and so we have been able now to put them out.”
The CEO of Meridian Rapid Defense Group confirmed to Fox News that his company sold 48 Archer barriers to New Orleans in 2017 — the same barriers the city installed on sidewalks around the French Quarter before reopening Bourbon Street on Thursday after federal officials concluded their crime scene evaluation.
Peter Whitford said the 700-pound, L-shaped steel barriers are “the strongest mobile barriers in the world,” designed to stop a 5,500-pound truck going 60 mph.
“Not only did they not know they had them, they didn’t even know how to describe them,” Whitford said of New Orleans officials describing the barriers. “Even now, in the pictures I’ve seen, the barriers aren’t even set up properly because the wheels are still down.”
The defense company has been trying to get in touch with city officials to explain how to set up the barriers, which remain improperly installed.
