The plans had been set for months: Dr. Roquell E. Wyche would finally take her son, Jaxon, to New Orleans, joining nearly 40 members of her husband’s family for their annual celebration of Mardi Gras.
Then, early on New Year’s Day, a terrorist rammed his pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in the city’s French Quarter, killing 14 people. Weeks later, a helicopter collided with a plane that was about to land in Washington, near her home, killing everyone on board.
All of it gave Dr. Wyche pause. But she and Jaxon, 11, came anyway.
“It’s been the best time of our lives,” she said on Sunday, watching as her son raced to catch a string of beads and her relatives joked with each other along a parade route. “Just to be able to leave and be free for a second.”
There was never any question that Carnival, that burst of indulgence and celebration before the sacrifice and contemplation of Lent, would go forward in New Orleans. But with the horror of the truck attack still fresh, some revelers felt at least a hint of trepidation as they ventured into the streets ahead of Fat Tuesday.
“I’m just going to double down on being careful,” said Shantae Howard, 31, who had whispered extra prayers during her shifts at a factory and on the flight from Green Bay, Wis., where she lives.
“Me holding myself to this means something to me,” said Ms. Howard, who travels solo to New Orleans every year for Mardi Gras. To her, returning despite the attack — on a plane, despite the crash — was an exercise in “soaking up life — not letting all that bad hinder your life,” she said.
Even as forecasts of powerful winds forced some of the parades planned for Tuesday to be shortened or outright canceled, it was clear that trust in Mardi Gras’s unspoken promise remained largely intact: No matter who you are, there is a place for you here.
“We are giant evangelists — there’s nothing like Mardi Gras,” said Chloe Ray, 33, who had a large cardboard cutout of a gingham tablecloth around her neck, part of a group crawfish boil costume. “Everyone is with you, sharing what they have.”
“I’ve never missed a Mardi Gras and I never will,” she added. “Parades are rolling? I’ve got to be there.”
All around the city — known, at times reluctantly, for its resilience — there were signs of anxiety amid the merriment. Among other things, the promise of tourism dollars did not materialize for many local businesses when the Super Bowl came to New Orleans last month.
“It weighs on me,” Stacy McClellan, an artist who sells her work in Jackson Square, said of the unease hovering over this year’s Mardi Gras. “This is our city’s identity for a lot of people.”
But as she carefully glued crystals on a painting of a peacock, she added, “We’re not letting any of that affect us. I can’t wait for Tuesday.”
She was among those who found the higher-than-usual level of security this year to be jarring, even as it reassured some.
Most notable was the number of law enforcement officers and soldiers, some with assault-style weapons strapped to their chest, along Bourbon Street and throughout the French Quarter. Officials said that along with hundreds of federal and state law enforcement officers, some 600 police officers — two-thirds of the New Orleans force — were assigned to 12-hour shifts at the parades.
And while there have always been barricades in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, there were far more than usual this year. Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick of the New Orleans Police Department described creating a “serpentine course” of barriers along the side of St. Charles Avenue opposite the parade, to “slow anybody down who thinks they’re going to use a vehicle as a weapon.”
It was still entirely possible, though, to be swept up in a haze of glittering gold, green and purple as bands and marching clubs wound their way through the city, and to approach a float, arms outstretched for a string of beads or whatever signature item the krewes might be throwing.
“This is rebirth,” said Steven Latiolais, 32, waving a laminated sign that encouraged people to “Let Go. Let Gras. (but be nice)” ahead of the Krewe of Red Beans walking parade in the Marigny neighborhood. “New Orleans hasn’t forgotten how to love and how to have a good time.”
Far from touristy Bourbon Street, the smaller walking parades showcased elaborate, handmade costumes, crafted from papier-mâché, beans and creative ambition. On Monday, there was space to lampoon politicians, to pay homage to Scrim, the runaway dog who became a hero for the city in recent months, or to flaunt a fringe jacket detailed with red beans.
“Our world here is something different from everyone else’s for just a few days,” Barrett DeLong, a photographer and tour guide, said as he donned his regalia ahead of the Fat Monday Luncheon, one of the oldest L.G.B.T.Q. celebrations in the state. “It feels like everything around us has stopped.”
And it felt, in a way, as if nothing had changed. Children, perched on shoulders or custom-painted ladders, caught trinkets and throws the way their parents once did. Families gathered in their ritual spots, some bringing wagons full of crawfish, burgers and libations.
Between parades, drinks and slices of king cake, some people attended a memorial for the victims of the Bourbon Street attack. A line of crosses that stood along the street for weeks after the incident had been moved to the Presbytère, a museum off Jackson Square.
Susan Cloninger, 70, was among those who stopped at the crosses to pay her respects, wiping away tears. Born and raised in New Orleans, she met her husband on the sidelines of the Krewe of Pandora nearly 50 years ago and had pushed away her worries to come out the weekend before Mardi Gras.
“Ultimately, this is what New Orleans does,” she said. “You put all worries aside and you have a good time.”
