reuters.com
www.reuters.com

Months before the deadly New Orleans vehicle attack on New Year’s Day, the city modeled scenarios for how an attacker could enter Bourbon Street at various intersections in a crew-cab Ford F-150 similar to the one used to kill 14 people and injure dozens more.

Engineers found such a pickup could enter the crowded tourist strip at speeds ranging from 12 to 70 mph - and yet city officials are now installing new street barriers that can only withstand 10-mph impacts, according to an April city-contracted engineering analysis and city bid documents reviewed by Reuters.

Those new barriers, known as “bollards,” had not yet been installed on Bourbon Street on New Year’s but are planned to be completed by the Feb. 9 NFL Super Bowl in New Orleans. The documents reviewed by Reuters, which have not been previously reported, make clear that the system won’t be able to prevent vehicle attacks at moderate-to-high speeds.

  • talEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Big picture here, I’m not sure how much point there is to putting heavier bollards in.

    I don’t believe that we’re going to seal off every area that a car can reach or someone can plant explosives at and that has a bunch of people in it in the US.

    It’s also not clear to me that there is a rash of people intent on a repeat job, trying to physically attack vice in New Orleans. Sounds like the perpetrator had a lot of problems and kinda was lashing out at the world solo.

    If we do get more incidents, then we’ve got more data points, okay, maybe do something then.

    There are a lot of ways to kill a bunch of people at once if you’re set on it and willing to be creative. You can maybe hit some of the most-egregious ones, but you won’t get all of them.