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By Brian Thevenot and Chris Kirkham
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Months before the deadly New Orleans car attack on New Year’s Day, the city modeled a scenario for how an attacker might enter Bourbon Street at a different intersection in an employee Ford. (NYSE: ) A similar F-150 crash killed 14 people and injured dozens more.
Engineers found that such a vehicle could enter a busy tourist strip at speeds from 12 to 70 mph — yet city officials are now installing new street barriers that can withstand the effects of 10- mph, according to an engineering review of an April contract with the city. application documents reviewed by Reuters.
Those new barriers, known as “bollards,” had not yet been installed on Bourbon Street in the New Year but are scheduled to be completed by the Jan. 9 NFL Super Bowl in New Orleans. Documents reviewed by Reuters, which have not been reported before, make it clear that the system will not be able to prevent attacks on vehicles at moderate to high speeds.
When choosing a new bollard system, the city prioritized operational convenience over the cost of the new bollard system due to chronic operational problems with the old one, according to documents and a source with and specific knowledge of Bourbon Street’s security plan. Unlike other pedestrian-only areas, such as New York City’s Times Square, Bourbon Street is open to vehicular traffic for most of the day, requiring officials to close parts of it to nearby streets in the evenings. each one.
Since the New Year’s Day attack, New Orleans officials have faced scrutiny over whether they left residents at risk as workers removed old bollards and installed new ones. But no system of restrictions could have prevented the deadly attack, according to the source and a Reuters review of city documents.
The city currently has no bollards at Canal and Bourbon streets, where the attacker entered, but the road was blocked by a police SUV parked on New Year’s Eve.
The suspect in the attack, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US soldier from Texas, abused another security measure in the city’s security plan: He rammed his four-foot-wide car seven on the eight-foot-wide road between the wall of the drug store and the police car, he stepped on it. accelerator and plow into the crowd at about 3:15 am
Jabbar died after the attack in a shootout with the police. Government officials said he had been forcibly converted and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group.
The city’s safety model, in an engineering study done to help select a new barrier system, only considered scenarios where a car entered Bourbon Street on the road — not the sidewalk. The car was unable to enter the many blocks of Bourbon on its narrow roads, which have other obstacles such as fire hydrants or balconies and street lights, the source said.
City officials would face “difficult meetings” about the ongoing weakness of the new bollards being installed now, the person said, “which would not have made a difference ” in the New Year.
New Orleans city officials did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters about their Bourbon-Street safety plan and the decision to select barriers with a 10-mph fall rate.
A person with direct knowledge of city security planning emphasized the challenge that all cities face in protecting against vehicular attacks while maintaining access to vehicular and pedestrian traffic, including footpaths for people with disabilities.
The source said officials selected a bollard system rated for 10-mph impacts from a company called 1-800-Bollards Inc. The City’s bidding documents, dated August and September, called for an installer of the system, calling it the “RCS8040 S10 removable bollard. .” An April engineering review by the city describes the product as having the S10’s crashworthiness and explains that it can stop a 5,000-pound vehicle traveling at 10 mph.
“The crash ratings are defined as S10 (10mph impact), S20 (20mph impact), and S30 (30mph impact),” the engineering review said.
The source said a barrier measured for a 10-mph impact could still slow or damage a fast-moving vehicle.
Representatives for 1-800-Bollards Inc declined to comment.
Two levels of the Bourbon Street attack by city-contracted engineers involved entering the street in a straight line, without turning, after building a ramp.
The study found that the 2015 F-150 can reach a speed of 50 mph by accelerating from a stop across Canal Street, a wide area with cross streets in the middle. The same car could hit 70 mph entering from the opposite end of Bourbon Street protected by bollards.
Jabbar drove the most lethal weapon in the truck used in the report – the new F-150 Lightning, an electric vehicle that is very fast, heavy and quiet.
During big events like New Year’s or Mardi Gras, the source said, the city’s security plans require parking large vehicles at the ends of Bourbon Street that are vulnerable to speeding vehicles. But such measures, the person said, do not work every day in the crowded tourist area.
‘BOURBON STREET JUICE’
By at least 2020, city officials have been studying how best to replace New Orleans’ failing car-attack defense system, 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 series of car attacks around the world, 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 crews to remove barriers near the street, according to city documents. A source told Reuters that the system was chosen in large part because it had already been bought and purchased by the federal government, allowing the city to install it quickly.
But the barriers proved problematic under Bourbon Street’s harsh conditions — and were often ineffective because the streets became littered with debris, including Mardi Gras beads.
In addition, the locking and unlocking mechanism was placed on the street and was often submerged in what the source calls “Bourbon Street Juice” – a mixture of street grime, trash, water rain, spilled drinks and occasional vomit to the tourist. strip off its smell.
“To unlock it, you have to dip your hand in Bourbon Street juice,” said the man. “It was a disgusting job. You couldn’t get anybody to do it. ”
Heald, the manufacturer of the bollards, said in a statement that they had not been changed in place to block Bourbon Street before the attack, “so, it did not work badly.”
The system works best, the company said, with “basic maintenance and cleaning.”
RACING WINNER
Because of those problems, the city prioritized factors including ease of operation and maintenance over safety standards when choosing a new system, according to the source and an April 2024 report from Mott MacDonald, an engineering firm hired by the city to inspect the numerous bollards. options.
Representatives for Mott MacDonald had no comment.
The report specified three different degradation rates for bollard systems. It concluded that the maximum crash ratings, which can withstand the impacts of 15,000-pound vehicles traveling between 30 and 50 mph, were “not consistent” with the requirements of the city to move bollards every day.
“Special lifting equipment such as a truck-mounted crane or heavy machinery will be required” to move such bottles on a daily basis, the report said.
The city chose the 1-800-Bollards Inc. system with 10-mph ratings, lightweight bollards that drop into street foundations, in part because the bollards could be installed and removed daily. and day is one city employee, the source said. . Those bollards weigh 44 pounds, the engineering review said, while similar 20 mph bollards weigh 86 pounds.
That same report included an example of a situational attack. Except for those showing speeds of 50 mph and 70 mph, all other conditions showed that the F-150 could turn the Bourbon between 12 mph and 20 mph without hitting the limit or running off the road — exceeding the limit. of 10 mph. of the system that the city has chosen.
The source said that the main concern of city officials, as well as French Quarter residents and business representatives, was to protect pedestrians from cars blocking Bourbon from side streets at low speeds.
The report found different systems in different ways. Ultimately, the system selected by the city was downgraded to “safety status” because it did not “meet specified project requirements.”
It received high marks for the weight of the bollards and their low cost.
