Security bollards removed for repairs before New Orleans attack

Safety barriers known as bollards were not in place where a suspect drove a car into a crowd in New Orleans’ French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing 14 and injuring at least 35.

Louisiana officials say roadblocks are out of order and are being repaired before the city hosts the NFL Super Bowl on February 9.

Short and sturdy bollards – made of concrete, steel or other materials – are designed to block vehicles from entering pedestrian areas.

Christopher Raia, deputy director of the FBI, on Thursday called the attack an act of terrorism.

Early on New Year’s Day, a police car was parked in the lane to block the entrance to Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, where the attack took place, but the suspect drove the car onto the sidewalk, police said.

Police have named Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas resident and US Army veteran, as a suspect. He died in the attack.

New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said on Wednesday that police are “aware of the situation” and have taken steps to “tighten the target areas”.

“We had a plan, but the terrorist defeated it,” he said.

Ms Kirkpatrick said the city was planning to take steps to increase security at the Sugar Bowl, which was moved from Wednesday to Thursday afternoon because of the attack.

Bourbon Street will reopen Thursday before the game.

“We’ve reestablished the facility,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said Thursday.

• Follow the latest updates on the attack Here

New Orleans began installing bollards on Bourbon Street a decade ago, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Wednesday.

But, he added, the bollards began to fail due to Mardi Gras beads, leading officials to try to replace them before the Super Bowl, which is scheduled to take place at the Caesars Superdome, near the site of the attack.

At the press conference, Ms Kirkpatrick defended some of the security measures the city had in place.

“We had a car there, we had barricades there, we had police there, and they still arrived,” he said.

Several cities in the US and around the world have installed bollards to prevent attacks.

New York City implemented safety measures on the Hudson River Park bike path after a man drove a rental car into cyclists and joggers on the path, killing eight people, in 2017.

It’s hard to say for sure whether the weapons in place in New Orleans would have prevented this, said University of Michigan professor and counterterrorism expert Javed Ali.

“He had a Ford 150. You shoot that thing at 50, 60 miles an hour, and who knows, even with the bollards in place, would the car – through physics – go through it?” he said.

“There must have been a lot of good things involved,” Ali added. “It’s sad what happens in these races.”

A 2017 report commissioned by the city of New Orleans found the French Quarter to be “a high-risk and high-terror area that the FBI has identified as a challenge for the city to address”.

The report said that the area “is often crowded with pedestrians and represents a high-traffic area”.