Navigating New Orleans During Mardi Gras

Around 6 p.m. on Saturday, the median of Carrollton Avenue was the most densely crowded place in New Orleans. A flood of Mardi Gras revelers had overtaken the wide street to watch the city’s most massive parade: Endymion, a “super krewe” that processes all the way through Mid-City to the Superdome on Samedi Gras (the Saturday before Fat Tuesday). Weeks before the parade itself, families had spray-painted their names on the grass of the median, trying to claim viewing areas. By the time the sun began to set after a day of perfect Mardi Gras weather, the median was a dense maze of coolers and tents and grills and humans.

All eyes were focused on the floats passing by when 25-year-old Neilson Rizzuto, stuck in traffic on the avenue after, police believe, a day of heavy drinking, revved the engine of his gray pickup and hit the gas. Rizzuto slammed into the two cars in front of him, propelling them diagonally onto the sidewalk, as he gunned his truck up over the median curb and into the crowds. A total of 32 people were injured, and 23 were hospitalized, several critically; remarkably, no one was killed.