NEW ORLEANS − Anxious and grieving residents and workers began cautiously reopening the Bourbon Street area on Thursday, a day after a terror attack that killed 14 amid New Year’s celebrations at the famously raucous party destination.
“New Year started with a bang, but it was the wrong kind of bang,” said 42-year French Quarter resident James Grose, 62. “Welcome to the nightmare.”
Around 3:15 a.m. on Wednesday, authorities say Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar of Houston swerved a rented pickup around a police barricade and careened down Bourbon Street. In addition to killing 14 people, he injured dozens more before crashing the truck and dying in a gunfight with police, the FBI said. Jabbar posted pro-ISIS videos on social media before the attack, the FBI said Thursday.
“It’s just too … close to home,” said Grose, a freelance cartographer. “It’s one thing to hear about terrorist attacks in the Middle East. It’s a whole other thing to have it happen in your own neighborhood on the street where you’ve walked.”