New Orleans was in full swing in the early morning hours on New Year’s Day.
Revelers emerged from bustling bars and packed clubs in the city’s French Quarter – an area often referred to as the heart of the city’s famous nightlife.
“It was all young kids out there. A lot of 19, 20, 21-year-olds,” recalled Derrick Albert, a local DJ who plies his trade every night at the corner of Canal and Bourbon streets.
At that intersection is a crowded tourist hotel, an ice cream and chocolate confectionary shop, and restaurants selling oysters and daiquiris in large plastic takeout cups.
But around 03:15 (09:15 GMT), youthful enjoyment turned to terror when the man – identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas resident and US Army veteran – drove a rented truck at high speed into the crowd.
He killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens, some seriously.
Grainy CCTV footage shows the moment the attack began, with a white pick-up truck driving down Canal Street past other vehicles, before turning right onto Bourbon Street, bypassing a police car, accelerating and plowing into the crowd.
“We just heard this whine, engine revving and a huge, loud bang,” Kimberly Stricklen, a visitor to New Orleans, told Reuters. “Then, people, screaming. The sound of scraping metal and bodies.”
The vehicle would go three blocks – hitting more passers-by along the way – until the driver crashed and came to a stop near the corner of Bourbon and Conti streets.
Jabbar then left his vehicle and fired at the police. He was killed by their return fire.
“We heard gunshots and saw people running by the window,” said Steve Hyde, a British visitor who was at the Erin Rose Bar, on Conti Street near Bourbon. “Then the sirens went off… My heart is broken. I love this city.”
By 3:17 a.m. — just two minutes after the attack — New Orleans police officers, already out in force for New Year’s Eve, were on the scene calling for emergency services trapped in a chaotic radio conversation.
“I have at least six victims. I have an office doing chest compressions on one. I have another white man who has agonal breathing,” one officer can be heard saying, referring to the gasping, irregular breathing common in emergencies. “Multiple victims.”
Soon after, the area was swarming with police, who cordoned off the entire area with crime scene tape and dozens of officers and vehicles as investigators arrived and emergency vehicles drove away.
For Mr. Albert, the incident was close.
Just a few weeks ago, the city issued him a ticket and told him he had to move down the street from his usual spot — which would have been on the same sidewalk the suspect took to pass the police car.
“That’s usually my corner,” he told the BBC, pointing to a Walgreen’s pharmacy at the edge of the crime scene.
“I would have been killed. I was more than lucky yesterday. He would have run me over. That ticket saved my life. I would have been the first one he hit.”
The FBI said a black flag of the Islamic State group was found in the vehicle that struck the partygoers, along with two suspected improvised explosive devices discovered nearby.
The investigation is ongoing and it remains unclear whether Jabbar acted alone or was part of a larger conspiracy.
But on the streets of New Orleans, much of the debate focused on whether more could have been done to prevent the attack and protect people.
The barriers put up a few years ago to prevent vehicles from entering Bourbon Street were in the process of being replaced so there were gaps. A single police car was parked there.
“We had a car there. We had barriers there. We had officers there, and they were still going around,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters. “We really had a plan, but the terrorist defeated it.”
The perceived failure to properly secure the road is some, like Mr. Alberta, confused.
He believes the number of people out on New Year’s Eve, as well as the thousands of people in town for the highly anticipated Sugar Bowl game scheduled for Jan. 1, warrants increased security.
A 2017 memo seen by CBS, the BBC’s US partner, revealed that officials in New Orleans were aware of the risk of mass-casualty attacks using vehicles as weapons.
The document specifically mentions similar attacks that took place in France, Great Britain and New York.
“We all knew it could happen at some point. Maybe at Mardi Gras. Maybe at the Superbowl,” Mr. Albert said. “Of course they could have stopped it… they’re going to be sued for it.”
Nearly 24 hours after the attack happened, the corner of Canal and Bourbon streets remained an active crime zone, with dozens of police cars blocking the road and police tape still taped up.
But nearby, life — and fun — slowly began to return to the French Quarter.
Bars on the same block where the attack took place were busy, primarily for the legions of football fans in town to move the Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame.
The music of live jazz musicians blared the curious onlookers who came to see the crime scene. Across the street, a Michael Jackson impersonator strolled down the sidewalk as the coroner’s vehicle left the area.
Although the area is still reeling from the attack and loss of life, many, like Mr Albert, said they were confident the area would return to normal sooner rather than later.
– Of course we will – he said. – Of course we will return.
