AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
We start this hour in New Orleans, which is trying to recover after a man rammed a pickup truck through New Year's revellers in the French Quarter. The attack killed 14 people and wounded dozens more. Residents there say they're determined not to let the incident destroy what makes the city special, its welcoming spirit and joie de vivre. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF SOUSAPHONE PLAYING)
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Getting the crime scene cleared and Bourbon Street back open was a priority for the city, and musician Tyrone Johnson is glad.
TYRONNE JOHNSON: It - when you think of New Orleans, what you think about? You think about the food, the music and having fun and being with your friends, family, and enjoying yourself. It's something we know and we love. We be on Bourbon every day.
ELLIOTT: Johnson plays sousaphone and is a leader of the One Way Brass Band. He hopes their music can be uplifting in a hard time.
JOHNSON: The city is not down. Like, it's still here. You still can come and enjoy yourself. That was one incident. Like, we - of course, we got to rebuild afterward. And we starting by giving the music out to the people.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ELLIOTT: Johnson is 24 and says he grew up learning to play music on the streets. And people here seem to know him, stopping to dance or wish him well.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Y'all stay safe out here, OK?
JOHNSON: You, too.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Thank you.
JOHNSON: We got to live here. We got to stay here. So this something we got to deal with. Tourists going to leave. We still got to, you know, make it great for our city. Keep it going.
ELLIOTT: The New Year's attack is raising questions about what needs to be done to improve security for both the people who live and work here and the millions of tourists expected in the coming months for the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras. Louisiana State Senator Royce Duplessis of New Orleans says it's certainly been a wake-up call to how vulnerable the city is.
ROYCE DUPLESSIS: We've never had a targeted terrorist event like this. For that reason, it's a shock to many. But in a lot of ways, it's not a shock when you think about the idea that New Orleans being such a large tourist destination where we are literally a hub of people congregating and gathering together. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that we could have been targeted.
ELLIOTT: The city was in the process of replacing malfunctioning bollards, steel columns intended to block vehicles from entering Bourbon Street when the deadly attack happened. Duplessis says a better security plan is needed. But he says it's unrealistic to think you can put barriers on every busy thoroughfare and sidewalk.
DUPLESSIS: Should the bollards have been working? Absolutely. No question about it. But I think your question was, had they been working, would it have stopped this individual from causing harm? And I can't say that it would have because someone who is determined, someone who has decided in their mind and in their heart that they want to carry out harm to a group of people - they are likely going to find a way.
ELLIOTT: Duplessis would like to see federal resources in the mix to harden security in New Orleans, a city that draws some 19 million visitors a year from all over the world. But while those tourists come and go, there are about 4,000 people who call the French Quarter home.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR CLOSING)
ELLIOTT: Nathan Chapman invites me through a long, narrow passageway into his historic Creole townhouse less than a block off Bourbon.
NATHAN CHAPMAN: What makes it Creole is most houses, you walk in the front door - right? - and you're inside the house. So we're actually going to enter from the rear.
ELLIOTT: And we're coming through a courtyard here.
CHAPMAN: Yes. For security, they didn't have front yards, you know, so New Orleans has been a wild and tough place for a long time.
ELLIOTT: Chapman says the New Year's attack has shaken his sense of security. He found himself checking his street for bombs. He's president of the Neighborhood Association for the French Quarter and says it's disheartening that the city's security plan didn't work.
CHAPMAN: When you see the pictures and the stories of the young people who were killed, it's just so profoundly sad. And that's not what we want the French Quarter to be associated with, right? People came here because it's a place of fun and joy and beauty. That's what we want to be known for, and we don't want that to change.
ELLIOTT: Chapman says there needs to be a balance in making the area less vulnerable.
CHAPMAN: I don't want it to be that we change the quarter so much that it's no longer a neighborhood.
JANE COOPER: If people didn't live here, it would just be Disneyland.
ELLIOTT: That's French Quarter resident Jane Cooper. She chairs the French Quarter Management District. She says leaders here face a challenge.
COOPER: What could we have done differently and what could be improved in the future, is that balance between this joy of life here and the freedom and the - you know, the loose rules sometimes and saying, how can we be safer?
ELLIOTT: Whatever changes come, Cooper says, don't expect an act of terrorism to sap the spirit here.
COOPER: People are saying, we're going to live our lives as we want to live our lives. We're not going to let fear win. And that is - I mean, if you were here after Katrina, you know, that came through loud and clear. I don't know if it's New Orleans' destiny or whatever, but this whole resilience thing keeps coming back to us because we have to have that kind of DNA to be able to say we're not giving up.
ELLIOTT: After all, this is a city that has survived a lot since it was founded in the early 1700s, including yellow fever, the Civil War and epic disasters. Debbie Elliott, NPR News, New Orleans. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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