As she arrived home after a night of celebration on New Orleans’ bustling Bourbon Street, sophomore Ana Claire Hanley looked at her phone to see that a deadly attack had occurred right where she had been ringing in the new year with her friends just moments before. 

At 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day, a man intentionally drove a rented pickup truck into a crowd of pedestrians on the street — a popular destination in the city’s French Quarter — killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. The FBI is investigating the attack as an “act of terrorism” after finding an ISIS flag in the attacker’s truck, but the Islamic State has not taken responsibility for the attack as of Sunday.

Hanley, a political science student from the city’s uptown, said she had walked out of the French Quarter minutes before and was heading home when she heard of an accident that occurred on Bourbon Street through news articles and text messages. Having worked in the French Quarter years ago and understanding that the area could be “hectic” due to its high crime rate, Hanley said she initially assumed a drunk driver caused the accident. 

“No one really knew the magnitude of what was going on in the moment,” Hanley said.  

When she read news reports and heard the mayor speak about the incident, Hanley said she started “piecing everything together” regarding what had occurred on Bourbon Street. About five hours after the truck collision, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city had experienced a “terrorist attack” and asked for prayers for those who had been killed. The suspect was killed in a shootout with local police shortly after the collision.

“It was just really shocking, there’s no other way to describe it,” Hanley said. 

Hanley said in the days that followed, she learned the suspect had reportedly placed an IED — which did not detonate — in a fried chicken restaurant that she had entered that night. The FBI said on Jan. 3 that the suspect intended to detonate two IEDs he hid on Bourbon Street with a transmitter found in his truck. 

“I was standing in one of the shops that they found an IED in, which was pretty jarring,” she said. 

Hanley said she was “disappointed” in city officials’ handling of the attack because she felt they “prioritized” the Sugar Bowl — a college football playoff game — over citizens’ safety. Federal, state and local officials postponed the game from Jan. 1 to Jan. 2 as locals remained uncertain and panicked about the safety of Bourbon Street and the French Quarter after the truck collision, she said. 

“They were more concerned about packing a Superdome full of people than like the 15 people and their families that just lost their lives, or the livelihood of all the people that were going and wanted to go experience New Orleans,” Hanley said.

Bourbon Street reopened to pedestrians a day following the attack with a heavy police presence and makeshift memorials of flowers and candles lining the street, NBC News reported. 

Hanley said she thought that D.C. would be a more dangerous place than her hometown when she moved to Foggy Bottom two years ago because of the District’s inherent political tension as the nation’s capital. She said there was gang violence and shootings when she worked the French Quarter, but she would have never expected violence of this nature to occur, especially in a tourist-dominated part of the city. 

“When I think about New Orleans, it’s definitely not known for being a safe city, but you would never think that it’d be the site of a terrorist attack, especially on Bourbon Street,” Hanley said. “It would be the last place that I would anticipate anything like that to happen.”

Sophomore Mary Napoleon, a political science student, said she was at home in eastern New Orleans when she heard of the attack because of a flurry of texts that night from her friends and roommates from GW asking if she was safe. 

“I checked the news and saw my newsfeed and family group chats flooded with concern,” Napoleon said in a message. “I was shocked, but even more confused that something so sudden and tragic would take place in the heart of the city.”

Napoleon said she felt sadness and fear after hearing of the attack, and said she was concerned not just for the victims but also for the New Orleans residents left “traumatized” from it. 

Junior Krish Sadhwani, who lives in the Algiers neighborhood on the west bank of the Mississippi River, said a member of his family had just closed the convenience store they own on Bourbon Street when the attacker’s truck collided with a nearby crowd. Sadhwani said his family member’s store, as well as other businesses on Bourbon Street, started normal operations the day after the attack following the FBI’s initial investigation. 

“I think once people found out that it was a terrorist attack, and there was an ISIS flag, people became more scared and more startled that this was happening so close to us,” Sadhwani said. 

At the time of the incident, New Orleans was in the process of renovating the security bollards that guard Bourbon Street from vehicle traffic, temporarily replacing the security measures with police vehicles that worked to but did not prevent the suspect from entering the area. Sadhwani said the city should’ve expanded its security in the area as a precaution because people often go out to celebrate the new year.

“People in the city should have been paying more attention to things that were happening,” Sadhwani said. “I feel like because the city didn’t do that, things like this can happen.”

He said New Orleans is resilient when faced with adversity. The city “always comes back,” he said.

“We won’t let something like this really stop us from continuing to do our day-to-day,” Sadhwani said. “New Orleans is strong.”