By Amy Tennery
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – New Orleans flings open its doors this week to the biggest party in American sports, welcoming thousands of tourists weeks after a New Year’s Day attack on the city’s iconic Bourbon Street.
Metal barriers were placed throughout the city’s French Quarter, where National Guard soldiers stood watch next to a memorial strewn with flowers and Mardi Gras beads for the 14 people killed when a U.S. Army veteran plowed into revelers.
The attack prompted a congressional review of security plans for the Feb. 9 Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs but locals said they were ready to host the game for a record-tying 11th time.
“That’s how New Orleans is. We’re very resilient and we always come back,” said Stephanie Lewis, 37, a born-and-raised New Orleanian who picked up part-time work at Jester Mardi Gras Daiquiris on Bourbon Street so that she could take in the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras celebrations.
“There was a general, overall pause because of the severity and the gravity of the situation. But it was like a collective pause and then ‘let’s regroup,’ you know?”
Tourism officials expect around 200,000 visitors to come into the city for the week-long celebration leading up to the game at the Superdome – about twice as many as the city would see on an average week.
The events will include a “Mardi Gras-style” Super Bowl parade through the French Quarter on Saturday morning featuring the famed Budweiser Clydesdales, among countless concerts, parties and lavish events on a crowded social calendar.
“There is truly a cultural thing that happens in our community where people truly and warmly welcome people in. And it’s a strength of ours,” New Orleans & Company President and CEO Walt Leger told Reuters.
“So it is very natural for us to cling to each other and others when things are difficult and challenging. And it’s healing, I think, in a way to be able to open your arms and welcome someone in.”
The city saw an economic impact of $500 million the last time New Orleans hosted in 2013 and Leger said he expects this year to surpass that, with hotels booked up throughout the region.
Rows of machines dispensing frozen daiquiris churned to life in open-air bars along Bourbon Street on Tuesday morning, a sign of normalcy in the “Big Easy,” where volunteers welcomed visitors arriving at the airport’s baggage claim.
Retired quarterback Drew Brees, a New Orleans sports icon after he delivered the city its first Super Bowl title during his 15-year tenure with the Saints, will be on hand throughout the week with sponsor Bounty to help get the party started.
Brees said he had little doubt his adopted home city would live up to expectations.
“The way that the city always responds to any type of tragedy or any type of natural disaster, whatever, is they just come together and they say ‘How can we support one another? How can we protect one another?’,” Brees told Reuters.
“And that’s exactly what they’ve done here.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New Orleans; Editing by Toby Davis)
