By Brian Thevenot and Chris Kirkham
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Months earlier than the lethal New Orleans car assault on New 12 months’s Day, town modeled eventualities for the way an attacker may enter Bourbon Avenue at varied intersections in a crew-cab Ford (NYSE:) F-150 much like the one used to kill 14 individuals and injure dozens extra.
Engineers discovered such a pickup may enter the crowded vacationer strip at speeds starting from 12 to 70 mph – and but metropolis officers at the moment are putting in new road obstacles that may solely stand up to 10-mph impacts, in keeping with an April city-contracted engineering evaluation and metropolis bid paperwork reviewed by Reuters.
These new obstacles, often called “bollards,” had not but been put in on Bourbon Avenue on New 12 months’s however are deliberate to be accomplished by the Feb. 9 NFL Tremendous Bowl in New Orleans. The paperwork reviewed by Reuters, which haven’t been beforehand reported, clarify that the system will not be capable of forestall car assaults at moderate-to-high speeds.
In deciding on the brand new bollard system, town prioritized ease of operation over crashworthiness of the brand new bollard system due to power issues in working the outdated one, in keeping with the paperwork and a supply with direct information of town’s Bourbon Avenue safety planning. In contrast to some pedestrian-only zones, corresponding to in New York Metropolis’s Instances Sq., Bourbon Avenue is open to common car visitors for a lot of the day, requiring metropolis officers to dam components of it off from surrounding streets every night.
Because the New 12 months’s Day assault, New Orleans officers have confronted scrutiny over whether or not they left residents susceptible as crews have been eradicating outdated bollards and putting in new ones. However neither barrier system would have prevented the lethal assault, in keeping with the supply and a Reuters evaluation of town paperwork.
The town at the moment has no bollards at Canal and Bourbon streets, the place the attacker entered, however the roadway was blocked by an SUV police cruiser parked sideways on New 12 months’s.
Assault suspect Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. fight veteran from Texas, exploited one other vulnerability within the metropolis’s safety planning: He squeezed his seven-foot-wide pickup onto an eight-foot-wide sidewalk between a drugstore wall and the police car, stomping the accelerator and plowing via the group at about 3:15 a.m.
Jabbar died after the assault in a shootout with police. Federal authorities have stated he had been radicalized and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group.
The town’s safety modeling, in an engineering research carried out to assist select a brand new barrier system, had solely thought-about eventualities the place a car entered Bourbon Avenue on the roadway – not the sidewalk. A car couldn’t enter most Bourbon blocks on its skinny sidewalks, which produce other present obstacles corresponding to hearth hydrants or balcony and streetlight posts, the supply stated.
Metropolis officers would face “tough meetings” concerning the persevering with vulnerabilities of the brand new bollards being put in now, the individual stated, which “wouldn’t have made any difference” on New Year’s.
New Orleans city officials did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters about their Bourbon-Street security planning and the decision to select barriers with a 10-mph crash rating.
The person with direct knowledge of the city’s security planning emphasized the difficulty all cities face in protecting against vehicle attacks while preserving access to routine vehicle and pedestrian traffic, including accessible sidewalks for people with disabilities.
The source said officials chose a bollard system rated for 10-mph impacts from a company called 1-800-Bollards Inc. City bidding documents, dated in August and September, sought an installer of the system, calling it the “RCS8040 S10 detachable bollard.” The city’s April engineering analysis describes the same product as having an “S10” crash rating and explains it can stop a 5,000-pound vehicle traveling 10 mph.
“Crash rankings are specified as S10 (10mph influence), S20 (20mph influence), and S30 (30mph influence),” the engineering analysis said.
The source said a barrier rated for 10-mph impacts could still slow or significantly damage a vehicle traveling faster.
Representatives from 1-800-Bollards Inc declined to comment.
Two of the Bourbon Street attack scenarios modeled by city-contracted engineers involved entering the street in a straight line, without turning, after building up speed.
The study found a 2015 F-150 could achieve speeds of 50 mph by accelerating from the stoplight across Canal Street, a wide boulevard with streetcar tracks in the median. The same vehicle could hit 70 mph entering from the opposite end of the section of Bourbon Street that is protected by bollards.
Jabbar drove a deadlier weapon than the truck used in the report’s scenarios – a newer F-150 Lightning, a much faster, heavier and quieter electric vehicle.
During major events such as New Year’s or Mardi Gras, the source said, city security plans call for parking large vehicles at the ends of Bourbon Street that are most vulnerable to high-speed vehicle attacks. But such measures, the person said, are not practical on a daily basis in the crowded tourist zone.
‘BOURBON STREET JUICE’
Since at least 2020, city officials have studied how best to replace New Orleans’ failing system of street barriers to protect against vehicle attacks, the source said.
The city installed its first bollard system after coming under pressure in 2017 from federal officials to protect Bourbon Street following a string of vehicle attacks globally, including one in 2016 that killed 86 people and injured hundreds in Nice, France.
New Orleans initially chose a system called the Heald HT2 Matador that allowed workers to move the barriers into position along tracks in the street, according to city documents. The source told Reuters the system was selected in large part because it had already been bid and priced by the federal government, allowing the city to install it faster.
But the barriers proved problematic under the rigors of Bourbon Street – and often inoperable because the tracks became jammed with litter including Mardi Gras bead necklaces.
In addition, the mechanism to lock and unlock the barriers was embedded in the street and often became submerged in what the source called “Bourbon Street juice” – the mix of street grime, refuse, rainwater, spilled drinks and occasionally vomit that gives the tourist strip its signature stench.
“To unlock it, you have to dip your hand into Bourbon Street juice,” the person said. “It was a disgusting job. You couldn’t get anyone to do it.”
Heald, the maker of the bollards, said in a statement that they had not been shifted into place to block Bourbon Street before the attack, “and, therefore, did not malfunction.”
The system operates effectively, the company said, with “basic maintenance and cleaning.”
LIGHTER-WEIGHT BOLLARDS
Because of those problems, the city prioritized factors including ease of operation and maintenance over crash safety ratings in choosing a new system, according to the source and an April 2024 report from Mott MacDonald, an engineering firm hired by the city to evaluate dozens of bollard options.
Representatives of Mott MacDonald did not comment.
The report outlined three different crash-rating standards for bollard systems. It concluded that the highest crash rating, which could withstand impacts from 15,000-pound vehicles traveling between 30 to 50 mph, was “not compatible” with the city’s needs to move the bollards every day.
“Specialized lifting equipment like a truck-mounted crane or heavy machinery would be necessary” to move such bollards daily, the report said.
The city chose the 1-800-Bollards Inc system with the 10-mph rating, relatively lightweight stainless-steel posts that drop into street foundations, in part because the bollards could be installed and removed daily by a single city staffer, the source said. Those posts weigh 44 pounds, the engineering analysis said, whereas similar 20 mph bollards weigh 86 pounds.
The same report included the attack-scenario modeling. In addition to those showing potential speeds of 50 mph and 70 mph, all other scenarios showed an F-150 could make turns onto Bourbon at between 12 mph and 20 mph without hitting a curb or running onto a sidewalk – exceeding the 10 mph crash rating of the system the city chose.
The source said the primary concern of city officials, along with French Quarter resident and business representatives, was protecting pedestrians from vehicles turning onto Bourbon from side streets at lower speeds.
The report scored completely different programs on varied standards. The system in the end chosen by town obtained a deduction in its “safety rating” rating as a result of it did “not meet the project requirements specified.”
It obtained increased marks for the burden of the bollards and their low prices.
