Tag: Ready

In the final days before Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, local, state and federal officials have described a dash to beef up security plans that were robust even before a New Year’s Day terrorist attack unleashed anguish and alarm in the city.

One of the most visible changes is the “enhanced security zone” around Bourbon Street, the site of the deadly ramming attack and a hive of activity when the Super Bowl is in town. Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana created the zone using an emergency order, which also allows law enforcement officers to search the bags of people entering the area and deny entry to anyone who refuses, officials said.

New steel barriers have also been installed to thwart other potential ramming attacks; the barriers were added partly out of concern that a new bollard system that was in the works before the attack was not strong enough to stop speeding trucks. No bollards were in place on Bourbon Street when the attack happened.

Even before the New Year’s mayhem, the security measures planned for the Super Bowl reflected the kind of vast and layered response that has become the default for an event of this magnitude — one that took months of coordination and drew upon years of experience.

But in recent weeks, officials have repeatedly sought to reassure residents and visitors by describing how they had re-evaluated and tweaked those plans after a man plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street. Fourteen people were killed and dozens more were injured in the attack, roughly a mile from the football stadium.

The blocks around the stadium, Caesar’s Superdome, have turned into a maze of barricades, fences and closed roads. About 2,000 law enforcement officers will be deployed this weekend — many in uniform, and many others working covertly. There are also checkpoints, armed National Guard troops and drones and helicopters constantly hovering overhead.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” said Collin Arnold, the city’s director of homeland security and emergency preparedness. “This last month has been very, very busy, but we’re ready. This city is ready.”

Even for a city well accustomed to tourism, conventions and major cultural events, the stakes posed by the Super Bowl are unrivaled. The event is projected to bring more than 125,000 people to New Orleans in the coming days, including the highest-profile celebrities, athletes and business leaders. White House officials said this week that President Trump was planning to attend.

“The biggest show on earth is going to go off without a hitch,” Mr. Landry said at a briefing on Monday.

At the same briefing, Kristi Noem, the federal homeland security secretary, said that there were “no specific, credible threats” regarding the Super Bowl. She joined Mr. Landry and a parade of law enforcement officials who urged a reasonable amount of caution but also stressed that the preparations were comprehensive.

The message was meant to ease the disquiet stirred by the attack on New Orleans’s most famous street.

Investigators said the attack had been carried out by a 42-year-old U.S. Army veteran from Texas who claimed to have joined the Islamic State terrorist organization, known as ISIS. He left two improvised explosive devices in coolers on the street in the French Quarter before he drove a rented pickup into a crowd at about 3:15 on New Year’s morning.

The attacker, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was killed in a shootout with the police that also injured two officers.

The carnage infused pain into what was supposed to be a season of revelry, coming before the parties and parades that lead up to Mardi Gras. The Sugar Bowl, the college football game played in New Orleans every January, was delayed by a day because of the attack. The city is also preparing for the Jazz and Heritage Festival that begins in April.

“We have worked tirelessly to ensure the security and safety of this city remains intact,” said Mr. Landry, a Republican, who added that coming to New Orleans — and enjoying it — was an important display of defiance in the aftermath of terror.

New Orleans’s history with the Super Bowl is almost as old as the event itself. The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings, 23-7, during Super Bowl IV at Tulane Stadium in 1970. The Super Bowl returned nine times between 1972 and 2013. On Sunday, when the Chiefs face the Philadelphia Eagles, New Orleans will tie Miami for hosting the most Super Bowls, 11.

Of all the logistical challenges that come with hosting the event, security is perhaps the biggest and most complicated. Mr. Arnold said that representatives from New Orleans had embedded at the two most recent games, in Las Vegas and Glendale, Ariz., to fully grasp all it entails. “It’s a tall order to put on something like this,” he said.

The Super Bowl is classified by the Department of Homeland Security as a level one event, meaning it has major national and international significance and requires extensive federal support.

It draws in officers from the New Orleans Police Department and other local departments, the Louisiana State Police, the F.B.I. and other federal agencies. Their presence is concentrated at the Superdome, the New Orleans convention center and the sites of related events nearby.

“The safest place to be this weekend will be under the security umbrella this team has put together,” said Cathy L. Lanier, the chief security officer for the National Football League and a former police chief in Washington, D.C.

But local officials acknowledged that their concerns extended beyond Super Bowl weekend. Mr. Arnold said the festivities surrounding Mardi Gras — with dozens of parades winding through the city and crowds pouring into the French Quarter — will in some ways be harder to safeguard than the Super Bowl.

This year, Homeland Security officials have also ranked Mardi Gras, which was previously regarded as a lower-tier regional event, as a level one event for the first time, allowing for more federal resources. A free app being rolled out for the Super Bowl called NOLA Ready will also be available during Mardi Gras and beyond; it allows users to quickly report an emergency to the authorities, share their locations with friends and get traffic and safety information.

The state has also used Mr. Landry’s emergency order to justify clearing homeless encampments near the Superdome ahead of the game. Critics have argued that the move was less about security than making sure the people living in tents were nowhere near Super Bowl tourists and television cameras, disrupting lives and routines in the process. The dozens who were displaced could choose to be taken to a temporary shelter away from the city center that promised access to resources, room for pets and shuttles to ferry people to work and appointments.

In the enhanced security zone in the French Quarter, ice chests and backpack coolers are forbidden. But state law still permits people to carry concealed guns into the zone, even though shootings have been a persistent problem in the French Quarter.

The additional measures that have been undertaken by the state since the attack and will continue through Mardi Gras are anticipated to cost about $52 million, officials said.

There have been some bumps when New Orleans hosted the Super Bowl before, like in 2013, when the lights in the Superdome went out for 34 minutes during the game. But even ahead of Sunday’s game, some city leaders were already contemplating the possibility of hosting for the 12th time.

“The track record, I think, speaks for itself,” said Anne Kirkpatrick, the city’s police superintendent.

New Orleans is often praised for its resilience, which officials brought up again this week. It is a source of uneasy pride for residents who have weathered hurricanes and extreme heat, the punishing toll of the coronavirus pandemic and a surge in violence that has recently dissipated.

In the most stressful moments, reflecting on past hardships and how the city had persevered can provide some solace.

“We bounce back,” Mr. Arnold said, “and I think that’s going to be the case here.”