New Orleans’ security presence will be in the ‘hundreds’ for the Sugar Bowl

NEW ORLEANS – As New Orleans prepares to reopen Bourbon Street to the public in the wake of the deadly truck attack on New Year’s Day, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said there would be an “unprecedented” presence of law enforcement ahead of Thursday’s Allstate Sugar Bowl.

At a news conference Thursday, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city would reopen Bourbon Street to the public at 3:30 p.m. ET Thursday, half an hour before No. 2 Georgia and no. 7 Notre Dame is scheduled to play in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl.

The Sugar Bowl was originally scheduled to be played on Wednesday night, but the game was pushed back a day after one deadly pickup truck attack on Bourbon Street killed 14 people and injured dozens more.

The FBI said Thursday it believes the driver of a truck that drove around a police barricade and plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day acted alone.

“I want to reassure (reassure) people that right now in the city of New Orleans there is an unprecedented amount of law enforcement resources that are being used to close and to hunt down and finish this investigation,” Landry said.

Landry said members of the Louisiana National Guard, as well as corrections officers and members of other state law enforcement departments, have been deployed to the city to help with security.

In an interview on “Today” Thursday, New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the city would have as much security in place for the Sugar Bowl as it planned to use for next month’s Super Bowl.

“We are in partnership with many other partners,” Kirkpatrick said. “Both local, federal, military police and so forth will be here, and so we’ll have absolutely hundreds of officers and personnel lining our streets, lining Bourbon Street, lining the French Quarter. So we’re manning up to the same level, if not more, than we were preparing for (the) Super Bowl.”

Scores of security officers around the 70,000-seat stadium handled dogs trained to sniff out explosive devices on Thursday. They surrounded cars entering the Superdome’s parking garage, and in some cases sniffed bags and backpacks.

Flags were at half-staff outside the Superdome and at nearby state buildings.

Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said federal agents had completed their investigation of Bourbon Street and turned the area over to the city.

Raia said the FBI at this time believes the driver of the truck — identified as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen and military veteran from Texas — acted alone in the attack.

“We do not believe at this time that anyone else is involved in this attack apart from Shamsud-Din Jabbar,” Raia said.

The attack, which also injured more than 30 people, took place around 3:15 a.m. CT Wednesday in the French Quarter, known worldwide as one of the biggest destinations for New Year’s Eve parties. The vehicle drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street, and after it stopped, Jabbar got out of the truck and opened fire on responding officers, New Orleans police said.

The officers returned fire, striking and killing Jabbar, police said.

Raia said the FBI located two IEDs in the French Quarter and it obtained video footage showing Jabbar placing coolers containing the IEDs in various locations around the French Quarter before the attack.

After planting the explosives, Jabbar then changed clothes, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News. ABC News said the FBI is still investigating whether there were people Jabbar spoke to or texted with before the attack early Wednesday, but no one was around to help him do anything, the sources said.

Raia said the FBI had recovered three cell phones and two laptops used by the driver as part of the investigation.

“We don’t believe the public is at risk around these locations,” Raia said.

City workers cleaned Bourbon Street Thursday morning. Vans and employees of businesses in the entertainment district were allowed in the area soon after.

Kirkpatrick said additional security measures would be in place in the French Quarter on Thursday. Police said Jabbar was able to steer around police barricades to drive onto Bourbon Street. The city was undertaking a project to remove and replace bollards — post-like barriers designed to prevent vehicles from entering the area. They were not yet in place for the sugar bowl.

New Orleans will host Super Bowl LIX on February 9th.

“Well, they weren’t able to be up and running and that’s because it was under repair,” Kirkpatrick said. “We were aware of this problem, and that’s why we used patrol cars. That will change today. We will have much heavier equipment to harden these softer targets. The city had a multimillion-dollar package to repair this infrastructure , but it was not complete at the time of this event last night.”

The Bulldogs and Fighting Irish are scheduled to leave their hotels for Caesar’s Superdome approximately two hours before kickoff. A Georgia official told ESPN the Bulldogs would return to Athens, Georgia, on a chartered flight after the game. The Fighting Irish were also expected to head to South Bend, Indiana, after the game.

The winner of Thursday’s game will play No. 6 at Penn State in the CFP semifinals at the Capital One Orange Bowl in Miami Gardens, Fla., on Jan. 9.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.