K9s, snipers and BearCats: How New Orleans is prepping to keep the Super Bowl safe

Security for the Super Bowl in New Orleans will feature more boots on the ground, more tech and more intelligence – spearheaded by a federal official who grew up 40 miles from where kickoff will take place.

Security for the Super Bowl in New Orleans will feature more boots on the ground, more tech and more intelligence – spearheaded by a federal official who grew up 40 miles from where kickoff will take place. Eric DeLaune, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations’ New Orleans office and the lead federal coordinator for the Super Bowl, has been heading meetings with local police, city officials and leaders from federal law enforcement agencies – many of whom are from Louisiana and want to make sure the horrors of the New Year’s truck attack in the city won’t happen again. “I did take (the attack) personally. And my people take it personally,” DeLaune told CNN. “This whole security effort. Not a single person involved in the planning of the security effort for the Super Bowl was unaffected by this. They all take this very personally, and what I saw was a level of renewed commitment and renewed passion for the implementation of this plan.” That security plan is already visible in the French Quarter ahead of Sunday’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. There are armored vehicles, scores of heavily armed police officers, street blockades, drones and more – transforming the party-friendly, pedestrian-heavy Bourbon Street to a scene akin to the presidential inauguration. “To be honest with you, this is very similar to what we had in Washington, DC, just a matter of 10 days or two weeks ago,” said US Rep. Dale Strong, a Republican from Alabama who visited the French Quarter on Monday. He particularly noted the number of K9s in place – “every dog you could imagine.” The security plan comes just over a month after a terrorist attack in which a man drove a pickup truck at high speed on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more before he crashed into construction equipment and was fatally shot by police. The assailant also placed two improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, on the street, with one in a rolling cooler and one in a bucket cooler. They did not explode.