By James Claussen
Over Winter Break, our family arrived in New Orleans on a Monday afternoon for the 2025 Allstate Sugar Bowl and to celebrate the new year. This celebration was, for so many people, tainted by the truck ramming on Bourbon Street.
But that happened two days after we arrived.
One of the first things I noticed is how different the environment is from Atlanta. While Atlanta is wooded, spread out, and relatively clean, New Orleans is dirty, packed, and fairly tropical as it is not far from the Gulf of Mexico.
Bourbon Street is a great representation of this. It features packed restaurants, bars, and hotels, with a large population of meandering vagrants and street performers, and the smell of Cajun food, alcohol and cigarettes. It’s extremely loud as you would expect. All of this is ratcheted up, of course, at times like Mardi Gras, or New Year’s Eve.
Our family ended up eating lunch on Bourbon Street on the day we got there, and we got to see the French Quarter at night. Although it wasn’t packed to the brim like the following night, which was New Year’s Eve, it was still very crowded as usual. There was a significant police presence, and they also had the streets blocked at the time so people could walk on the road.
The next day, after eating breakfast, we spent multiple hours at the renowned WWII museum, which was a cool experience in itself. I went to Bourbon Street with my dad to eat lunch and explore the surrounding area some more. We were there for a long time, going up and down the street, before finally heading back to the hotel to rest prior to dinner.
After eating dinner with a friend of mine, we went to a restaurant with a bar in it (not near Bourbon Street) and discussed what we should do. Although it was fun, we still wanted something extra. My friend suggested that we head back to Bourbon Street, and stay there for the massive celebration of the new year. However, my dad said no, as it was going to be too wild for us teens, and he also was eerily worried about a terrorist attack, given how big the party was going to be.
Little did I know that his fears were confirmed.
After watching fireworks explode outside on the 19th floor of our hotel, I woke up with tragic news. My dad said to turn the news on immediately as apparently ten people were killed early in the morning by a truck, well past when I went to sleep. Sure enough, only a couple of blocks away from the hotel I was staying at, police had shut down Bourbon Street to investigate what happened, and also make sure nothing else had been planted there. After breakfast, my dad and I went over as close as we could to see what was shut down.
When we got over to our desired location, at the corner of Canal and Carondelet Street (which turns into Bourbon,) there were a host of reporters, cameramen, and loads of people observing the crime scene. There was a massive number of police cars, and there was also police tape restricting anyone from entering it, and you couldn’t really see down Bourbon Street very well. Some of the surrounding areas were also blocked off as the police and FBI needed to investigate the whole area where the crime took place.
However, it was not completely blocked. In fact, we ate lunch a block away from where the terrorist attack took place, so we could go somewhat near the crime scene. Because the most popular area of the French Quarter, Bourbon Street, was blocked off, that allowed for the concentration of eccentric individuals to rise. In fact, a man wearing a dirty yellow jacket followed us, and scared both my sister and me. Lunch was good, but so messy I had to wear a bib (BBQ shrimp.)
By this point, the Sugar Bowl had been moved to the following day so they could arrange security and make it completely safe. All the police were over in the French Quarter and not the Superdome, where the game was taking place, which could make the venue potentially dangerous.
After lunch, which was really good but messy, we headed into a restaurant next to our hotel to get beignets and watch the last few minutes of the Peach Bowl, which was on at the place.
For the rest of the day we chilled out at the hotel. Instead of going out to eat, we just stayed back at our hotel and got pizzas and then went to sleep to get rest for the Sugar Bowl. It was one eventful New Year’s Day to say the least.
By the following day, more information came out on the terrorist attack. The death toll was up to 14, and they also discovered bombs planted on Bourbon Street and the man convicted of the acts was a part of ISIS. Thinking about it, I could have easily walked right past some explosives that previous afternoon.
We didn’t really do that much prior to the Sugar Bowl. But, in spite of everything that happened in the prior days, the Sugar Bowl itself was fun. Although Georgia lost (23-10), it was still cool going into the Superdome and an experience to remember. With that being said, though, this was still overshadowed by what happened on that tragic New Year’s Day in the early morning on Bourbon Street.
Everything for the Sugar Bowl was overshadowed by this incident because one man decided to drive a truck and commit an act of terror. This tragic event killed many people and ruined the New Year for many more. It was hard not to wonder about the possibility that we could have gone to Bourbon Street that Tuesday night, and if we were allowed there, what would have happened. We would have walked right past those coolers with the explosives, and we could have potentially faced an explosion.
We may never know.
