NEW ORLEANS — The Sugar Bowl offered University of Georgia football fans two reasons to head to the Big Easy: celebrate the new year and cheer for the Bulldogs in their College Football Playoff matchup against Notre Dame.
But within the first few hours of 2025, tragedy struck the city’s crowded entertainment district. Authorities say a driver raced a pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street early Wednesday and then opened fire on responding officers, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens of others. The suspect was killed in the shootout, authorities confirmed.
Many Georgia fans woke up to the horrific news of the attack, which the FBI is investigating as an act of terrorism. One UGA student, identified as Elle Eisele by her high school in Florida, was critically injured in the attack, the university said.
The Sugar Bowl was postponed until Thursday.
“It’s just surreal to think that this terror was happening here last night, that evil was lurking,” Rob Saye, an Alpharetta photographer, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution early Wednesday.
Saye watched fireworks from the window of his French Quarter hotel room Tuesday before heading to bed shortly after midnight. When he woke up, his view was a scene of police tape, emergency vehicles and debris.
Mark Konter, a diehard Georgia fan from Savannah, was staying with his wife and two young sons in a nearby hotel. He woke up to police swarming the area, examining parked cars near Bourbon Street.
For Philip Rafshoon, it was his first New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, though he had previously visited. He and his husband arrived in town Monday, not for the game but to celebrate the new year and enjoy good food.
They arrived back at their French Quarter hotel at 3 a.m., about 15 minutes before the attacks began about four blocks away. Rafshoon, the Midtown Alliance’s director of member engagement, said they woke up to text messages from friends asking if they were OK.
It was Rafshoon’s second close encounter with a violent act. He said he was at Centennial Olympic Park the night of the 1996 bombing during the Atlanta Olympics and left just an hour before that attack happened.
”It’s déjà vu all over again,” he said.
Crowds in New Orleans swelled this week ahead of the city’s famous New Year’s celebration and the college football showdown. The stadium was on lockdown Wednesday, and much of the French Quarter was under tight security behind ribbons of police tape.
Rafshoon said Bourbon Street was packed Tuesday night but felt safe. Rick Lackey, a veteran commercial real estate broker from Atlanta, said the police presence “was enormous.” Lackey told the AJC he was surprised an attack was possible given all the security he saw.
“I definitely felt secure,” Lackey said.
Lackey has decided to stay an extra day to watch the postponed Sugar Bowl, adding that “everybody is sort of guardedly in shock” following the incident.
Scott Johnson, a Georgia fan from Cobb County, dined with fellow fans in the French Quarter on Tuesday night and then took in the fireworks over the Mississippi River before turning in for the evening. He woke up to the tragic news.
“The mood is somber — so many of us were so close to real tragedy,” he said. “It’s hard to feel like celebrating or think about football when innocent lives were taken just yards away.”
He added that he’ll stay in New Orleans an extra day to join the crowd cheering on Georgia.
“It was the best decision to delay,” Johnson said. “I appreciate being safe above all.”
— Staff writer Zachary Hansen contributed to this article.
