Tuesday is Mardi Gras, but some revelers in New Orleans and its surrounding area had to adjust their parades and plans due to strong winds up to 60 mph and a tornado watch.
The city and surrounding areas anticipated the winds. The New Orleans Police Department announced Monday that two parades, the Zulu and Rex parades, would be starting early.
The Zulu parade ended up starting at 6:30 a.m. local time, 90 minutes early, and the Rex parade started at about 9:30 a.m., with both disbanding early, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Two other parades, the Elks Orleanians and Crescent City parades, were rescheduled for this weekend.
In Jefferson Parish, parades were canceled outright due to the wind.
“These are not conditions where we would invite family, including the elderly and children, to stand on our streets out in the open. These are not conditions for people to be elevated on floats, God forbid, having a float tip over and there’s people on the street just under those floats,” Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said Monday, according to ABC News.
The National Weather Service’s New Orleans Office said on social media Tuesday that there were sustained winds in the area between 20-35 mph, with frequent gusts of 45 mph and the strongest gusts reaching up to 60 mph.
Just after noon Tuesday local time, the strongest wind was measured at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at 53 mph, the NWS office said. The weather officials also put the greater New Orleans area on tornado watch, with a high possibility of tornadoes between 111-165 mph.
Both the Zulu and Rex parades had fewer components than usual, with marching bands and other such elements ruled out, the New Orleans City Council said on social media Monday. The New Orleans Fire Department also warned revelers not to bring tents, umbrellas and folding chairs, all liable to get caught up in gusts.
“At least they let us roll, they figured it out. They gave us a little something. … Ain’t nothing like Zulu, the people that show up,” Jeremy Speed, a Zulu member who rode a float Tuesday, told The Associated Press.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.