AUSTIN (KXAN) — The safety barriers protecting New Orleans’ Bourbon Street were under construction, and not up, when a driver plowed into a crowd on the street in the early hours of New Year's Day, killing 15 people.
The project to replace the city’s old bollards along Bourbon Street with newer stainless-steel bollards began in early November and was set to continue until January, according to the city’s plans posted online. Online plans showed the construction crews would be “replacing them with temporary asphalt to maintain vehicle access” during the construction.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said on Wednesday there were officers and police cars in places where bollards were supposed to be. Kirkpatrick said the driver drove around the police vehicles onto the sidewalk.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry vowed to fix "defects" with safety barriers in the French Quarter.
"We can go into what-ifs forever. This is evil," Landry said. "Where there are defects in the system, we are going to be transparent, address them with the city, and make sure that we fill those gaps as best we can."
Rob Reiter, the co-founder of the nonprofit Storefront Safety Council, said using a police car as a safety barrier is not effective or recommended.
"A police car has a lot of things, but it's not a cheap, effective, full-time safety barrier. They can get moved for a number of reasons," Reiter said. "A determined attacker can push the vehicle out of the way using, you know, a low-speed crash, or just pushing it."
A recent study from the Cyber Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency identified 51 vehicle attacks in the United States between 2000 and 2022. The report also discussed vehicle-borne improvised explosives devices, or VBEID, in which a perpetrator uses a vehicle to deliver a bomb.
“Although infrequent, especially in the United States, potential VBIED incidents remain a serious concern for critical infrastructure facilities and mass gathering event security teams due to the associated potential threats, damage, and lethality,” the April 2024 report stated.
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, asked the General Services Administration to review all federally owned and leased buildings in the southwestern United States, including Louisiana, amid an "increased number of deaths and injuries from a lack of safety bollards." The letter sent on Dec. 27 cited KXAN's "Preventing Disaster" investigation.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Wednesday that weapons and a potential IED were in the Ford pickup truck investigators said 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove into the crowd on Bourbon St. An ISIS flag was also located in the vehicle.
The topic of safety bollards has come up recently within the Austin City Council and the Texas Legislature following KXAN’s reporting on a drunk driver who crashed through an Austin emergency room.
In December, the Austin City Council unanimously passed an ordinance requiring crash-rated safety bollards at new hospitals, urgent care clinics, and stand-alone emergency rooms. Texas State Senator Royce West, D-Dallas, filed a bill requiring crash-rated safety bollards at most hospitals in the state after KXAN’s reporting revealed more than 400 crashes, at or into, medical centers nationwide in the last decade.
Austin City Council Member Zo Qadri is also pushing for safety bollards to be placed in other parts of the city with high-foot traffic, specifically a requirement for safety bollards in downtown Austin. Qadri referenced concerns around a previous incident during SXSW in 2014 where a man drove into a crowd at the festival, killing four people.
“We are always looking at ways to keep pedestrians safe downtown, and many cities have utilized bollards to great effects to that end," Qadri said. "While these are still early discussions, I am very open to these kinds of simple and effective commonsense measures that save lives."
