Latest news with #MeridianRapidDefenseGroup
CTV News
29-04-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Security barriers to be rushed in for Vancouver Marathon following festival attack
A shipment of security barriers destined for Vancouver has been fast tracked to ensure the Vancouver Marathon is sufficiently protected, one week after a vehicle attack at a cultural festival killed 11 and injured dozens more. Peter Whitford, CEO of security company Meridian Rapid Defense Group, says a supply of barriers had been ordered by the Vancouver Police Department in February and were due to be delivered around May 16. Following the tragic attack on Saturday at the Lapu-Lapu Day Filipino festival, the company has ramped up efforts to deliver 44 security barriers, a trailer, and the staff necessary to help deploy them, to the city before the BMO Vancouver Marathon on Sunday. 'We're going to provide this at no cost to the city of Vancouver to ensure that we can work with them to make this event as safe as we possibly can, as quickly as we can, after the aftermath of last weekend,' said Whitford. Whitford commends the VPD for doing a 'spectacular job at assessing the risk,' prior to the FIlipino event, ensuring that they looked at the risk factors and deemed them to be low, such that protection wouldn't be required. However the incident that unfolded on Saturday highlighted how any event where 'people mingle with traffic' needs perimeter security standards in place, Whitford said. 'I think the risk profile today is higher than it has been for many, many years,' he said. 'People will take to using vehicles for a very high impact when it comes to trying to do damage or harm to people. The impact of using a vehicle where people are in crowded places has definitely increased over the years.' The U.S.-based company began in 2005 with an aim of protecting the military in war zones. When a cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, in 2016, killing 80 people and injuring hundreds more, Whitford says there was a shift in ensuring the safety of the military to 'everyday people doing everyday activities.' The security company's star product, the Archer 1200 barrier set for Vancouver next month, was upgraded as a result to cater to the growing demand, he says. Adjustments were made to ensure it was mobile and easy to transport and allowed emergency access where needed. 'We combined all of that with the speed of deployment, so a one-person deployment will be able to shut down both ends of a street in under 10 minutes,' he said. The barriers are crash tested four to five times a year, and are available in over 20 different configurations to suit any and all manner of events. Whitford says the company works hard to ensure the barriers seamlessly blend into an event by having them rendered with the logo and colours of the city hosting them. 'It's that type of synergy that we work with, so they're not looking at something that is a war zone, they're looking at something that is complementary with what this city is trying to do,' he says. In the years since the attack in Nice in 2016, Meridian's barriers have become a regular fixture at parades and large-scale events around the States, including the Rose Parade in Pasadena on New Year's Day, the NFL Draft, the Super Bowl and the Grand Prix in Las Vegas, alongside those internationally. Whitfield says his company had provided the city of New Orleans with its 1200 Archer barriers before the devastating truck attack that took place on New Year's Day this year. The barriers that had been provided, however, were not deployed. If they had, the event would have had 'a very different' outcome, he says. 'We believe that there wouldn't have been the number of fatalities that existed,' says Whitford. 'So, when you have a product and you have equipment to protect people, you have to make sure that you are using it, and you have to determine what risks are going to be associated with what events,' he said, adding how there is a 'high sense of urgency' to guarantee such mass gatherings are protected.
Vancouver Sun
28-04-2025
- Automotive
- Vancouver Sun
U.S. company rushing to ship security barriers to Vancouver before marathon, after deadly festival attack
Article content A security company says it is speeding up the delivery of previously ordered vehicle-blocking barriers to Vancouver in time for this weekend's marathon, following last Saturday's deadly vehicle attack at a local street festival that left 11 people dead. Article content About two months ago, the Vancouver Police Department placed an order for mobile barriers, designed to block cars and keep people safe at public events, from a company called Meridian Rapid Defense Group, the company's CEO Peter Whitford said Monday. Article content Article content The 16 mobile barriers, along with two 'rapid gates' which are designed to enable access of emergency vehicles, were originally scheduled to be delivered to Vancouver the week of May 16, Whitford said. Article content Article content After Saturday's attack at the Lapu Lapu Day festival in east Vancouver, Meridian contacted the VPD to ask if the city could use the equipment for any major events before the planned delivery. Article content The company is now trying to rush the delivery of the barriers to Vancouver in time for the Vancouver Marathon scheduled for May 4, Whitford said. More than 25,000 participants are expected to take part in the marathon. Article content Meridian is not charging extra for the rush order, Whitford said. Article content 'We seek to help people,' Whitford said. 'It's about the work we do keeping people, communities and places safer that's at the forefront, not necessarily about the commercial reality.' Article content Article content When Meridian started in 2005, the company's original focus was supplying security products for the U.S. military in combat zones, Whitford said. Ever since a vehicle-ramming attack by terrorists in the French city of Nice killed more than 80 people in 2016, more of the company's business has shifted to supplying governments and law enforcement agencies with products to make public events safer. Article content Article content Municipal governments elsewhere in Canada have purchased Meridian's mobile barriers in recent years, Whitford said, and Vancouver is the first Canadian police department to do so. Article content 'The fact that they have seen an issue and have responded to that, they (the Vancouver police) should be commended for that. Yes, everybody, in hindsight, can say: 'Why didn't they do it back in 2004?' Whitford said. 'I don't think you're going to get any further by criticizing people for the timing that they make a decision. … I think that they should be applauded.'
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Yahoo
‘Back injuries' and ‘a tripping hazard': New Orleans officials still resisting anti-ramming barriers after deadly vehicle attack
At least some public safety officials in New Orleans evidently remain skeptical of easily deployable, 700lb steel barriers designed to prevent intentional vehicle ramming attacks – even after one carried out on the city's most famous street on New Year's Day killed 14 people and injured 67 others, according to a trove of government emails obtained by the Guardian. Received through a public records request, the emails detail how the inventor of so-called Archer barriers – which the city had bought but kept in storage on the day of the deadly Bourbon Street attack – encountered a measure of resistance when he traveled to New Orleans with his company of his own volition to train local authorities on how to expeditiously deploy the barricades. Police officers 'were not thrilled with the notion that they were responsible for deploying and breaking down the barriers' whenever they were going to be used, a process that on Bourbon Street could be completed in 20 minutes, Archer creator Peter Whitford wrote in an email to New Orleans' municipal director of homeland security and emergency preparedness, Collin Arnold. Related: Family of New Orleans attack survivor: 'They should've protected people better' 'The concern was about back injuries and police work versus public works [employees] doing the work,' Whitford wrote in the message, sent 12 days after the attack. Alluding to longstanding staffing shortages at the New Orleans police department, one of the officers 'expressed that this was not part of their job description, and if someone got injured then they would be down a person, and there is not enough resources to back fill'. Meanwhile, at another point, Arnold received an email from New Orleans' public safety and homeland security director, retired high-ranking police commander John Thomas, which described the Archer barriers from Whitford's Meridian Rapid Defense Group as 'very dangerous'. The email said the barriers pose 'a tripping hazard' and have 'sharp edges' that could hurt anyone pushed into them. The message also suggested the Archer barriers had little practical use if they are not 'movable quickly for emergencies' – which they are – and had to be permanently left in place upon being deployed, which they are not. Ultimately, as the city beefed up crowd security ahead of hosting the NFL's Super Bowl on 9 February and then prepared to host its annual celebration of Carnival culminating in Mardi Gras on 4 March, New Orleans officials have used their Archer barriers in certain spots rather than stowing them away. Yet an announced agreement for the barriers to shield large sections of New Orleans' main Mardi Gras parade route was later scuttled, Whitford said in a recent interview. Police officials declined to comment on the emails related to the Archer barriers, citing various investigations into the Bourbon Street attack as well as pending litigation from injured victims or families of the slain who have accused the city of failing to adequately protect New Year's revelers. But Whitford faulted a disagreement over the division of labor for the New Orleans government's palpable skepticism to a type of barrier that on New Year's Day 2024 prevented a woman with a history of mental illness from plowing a car into a crowd of spectators at the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, where the Meridian firm is based. 'Where the benefit for everyone would be is police should be doing police work, fire should be doing fire work and emergency services should be providing emergency services,' Whitford said. 'And I think public works or the private sector should be responsible for putting out equipment' like the Archer barriers. Spokespeople for New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration did not respond to a request for comment. The administration ostensibly oversees a municipal government division tasked with 'providing physical security at … events', and it has the authority to enter into arrangements with private service providers. New Orleans acquired 41 Archer barriers in 2017 under the administration of Cantrell's mayoral predecessor, Mitch Landrieu, as part of a $40m public safety package implemented as a countermeasure to deadly car rammings aimed at crowds in Nice, Berlin, London, New York and Barcelona. Nonetheless, when crowds descended on Bourbon Street to celebrate the beginning of 2025 less than two weeks after a deadly truck attack at a German Christmas market, New Orleans officials left their Archer barriers stowed away. Officials also left down two other kinds of blockades meant to protect crowds from motorists meaning them harm – road-blocking, cylindrical bollards and a wedge barrier that can be hydraulically raised or lowered in seconds. City officials had varied explanations when confronted after a former US military member sympathetic to the Islamic State (IS) terror group's cause drove a pickup truck up three blocks of Bourbon Street, killing or injuring more than 70 people before he crashed and was killed in a shootout with police. They said the bollards needed repairs after being worn down by the rigors of one of the world's most zealously festive thoroughfares. The wedge barrier allegedly had a history of malfunctioning, though the manufacturer later said the city essentially ignored its offer to inspect and repair the product if necessary. As for the Archer barriers, six days after the attack, Arnold went on a local radio station and conceded that they are effective at tilting back if struck by a motorist, getting 'tangled under the vehicle and dig[ging] into the street and … [doing] a massive amount of damage'. He complained, however, that 'moving them takes significant effort that must be thought of a couple of days before'. 'And once they're deployed, moving them takes usually two to three people,' he added. Two days after Arnold's remarks, the president of an independent government watchdog group sent an email to LeJon Roberts, the New Orleans police commander in charge of officers patrolling Bourbon Street and the surrounding French Quarter neighborhood. The email from the president of the New Orleans metropolitan crime commission, Rafael Goyeneche, contained a link to a YouTube video which showed a woman with gray hair effortlessly and single-handedly pushing and pulling an Archer barrier, using equipment from Meridian allowing one to assemble what is essentially a hand dolly cart. 'Do you have access [to] these?' Goyeneche wrote. Roberts replied: 'The two we have are inoperable due to damage.' The reply conspicuously did not say when police realized they were broken – or if they took steps to either repair or replace them. Asked for comment on that exchange, Goyeneche said he recalled trading emails with Roberts but declined to elaborate much. He did say he got the impression that this equipment 'must have been put away and forgotten about' – and that he thought it was unusual this 'type of stuff … [would be] the police department's responsibility'. Meanwhile, Whitford described initially having repeated telephone calls to various city officials unreturned after the attack. He eventually got through to Arnold, who on 9 January informed Cantrell and other members of her staff that Meridian would come to town to update the city's supply of Archers. The company would also 'set them up appropriately and provide training' to police, Arnold wrote. It was in the ensuing days when Whitford encountered officers' concerns about possible back injuries and musings about whether other municipal employees were better suited for the work. Despite that, during Super Bowl week and in advance of Carnival, Meridian's barriers have been seen along Bourbon Street and at other spots in the French Quarter. That included the city's Jackson Square and nearby St Louis cathedral, where light shows were projected on the building's exterior. They were also seen erected outside New Orleans' Saenger Theater, which hosted the NFL Honors ceremony recognizing the league's best from the preceding season. Meridian then announced that the city had agreed to rent about 900 additional barriers to protect the city's traditional Mardi Gras parade route largely along its iconic St Charles Avenue in time for when the peak of the festive season kicked off on 21 February. Emails showed the arrangement would cost the city $200 a barrier for each day of parades, with any Meridian staffers hired to oversee specific access points costing a daily fee of $750. Whitford said the city expressed a willingness to pay for the arrangement. But a disagreement over whether to completely ban vehicular traffic along the route at certain times on days with parades – rather than only on the side of the street used by the floats and marching units – prompted Meridian and New Orleans officials to effectively cancel the agreement. After hiring former New York and Los Angeles police chief William Bratton to harden its security plans for the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras, city officials have lined the side of St Charles open to motorists ahead of parades with water-filled barricades designed to serve as impediments that drivers must slow down to get around. The barriers are arrayed to create what is known as a 'serpentine' traffic pattern – or, in car racing parlance, a series of chicanes. Officials have also resorted to lining the St Charles median – or, as New Orleans refers to it, the neutral ground – where many spectators gather early to watch parades with concrete barriers, which can be effective in deflecting sidelong blows from cars. WWL Louisiana also reported that Cantrell is considering making Bourbon Street exclusively for pedestrians rather than continuing to permit car traffic at times when crowds aren't as dense. Unlike Archer barriers, Whitford said, neither concrete nor water-filled barricades are certified by the US's homeland security department under a congressional act incentivizing anti-terrorism technology. Yet Whitford said he was glad the city had implemented those measures at least, when in years past neither were present. 'They have made some improvements in safety – it's reasonable to say that,' Whitford said that. 'For it to be the safest possible, it would be shutting down [the route] entirely. 'And the city is heading in that direction. But they have still made a decision not to make this a pedestrian [only] event; they've made a decision to allow some vehicle traffic.'
The Guardian
28-02-2025
- The Guardian
‘Back injuries' and ‘a tripping hazard': New Orleans officials still resisting anti-ramming barriers after deadly vehicle attack
At least some public safety officials in New Orleans evidently remain skeptical of easily deployable, 700lb steel barriers designed to prevent intentional vehicle ramming attacks – even after one carried out on the city's most famous street on New Year's Day killed 14 people and injured 67 others, according to a trove of government emails obtained by the Guardian. Received through a public records request, the emails detail how the inventor of so-called Archer barriers – which the city had bought but kept in storage on the day of the deadly Bourbon Street attack – encountered a measure of resistance when he traveled to New Orleans with his company of his own volition to train local authorities on how to expeditiously deploy the barricades. Police officers 'were not thrilled with the notion that they were responsible for deploying and breaking down the barriers' whenever they were going to be used, a process that on Bourbon Street could be completed in 20 minutes, Archer creator Peter Whitford wrote in an email to New Orleans' municipal director of homeland security and emergency preparedness, Collin Arnold. 'The concern was about back injuries and police work versus public works [employees] doing the work,' Whitford wrote in the message, sent 12 days after the attack. Alluding to longstanding staffing shortages at the New Orleans police department, one of the officers 'expressed that this was not part of their job description, and if someone got injured then they would be down a person, and there is not enough resources to back fill'. Meanwhile, at another point, Arnold received an email from New Orleans' public safety and homeland security director, retired high-ranking police commander John Thomas, which described the Archer barriers from Whitford's Meridian Rapid Defense Group as 'very dangerous'. The email said the barriers pose 'a tripping hazard' and have 'sharp edges' that could hurt anyone pushed into them. The message also suggested the Archer barriers had little practical use if they are not 'movable quickly for emergencies' – which they are – and had to be permanently left in place upon being deployed, which they are not. Ultimately, as the city beefed up crowd security ahead of hosting the NFL's Super Bowl on 9 February and then prepared to host its annual celebration of Carnival culminating in Mardi Gras on 4 March, New Orleans officials have used their Archer barriers in certain spots rather than stowing them away. Yet an announced agreement for the barriers to shield large sections of New Orleans' main Mardi Gras parade route was later scuttled, Whitford said in a recent interview. Police officials declined to comment on the emails related to the Archer barriers, citing various investigations into the Bourbon Street attack as well as pending litigation from injured victims or families of the slain who have accused the city of failing to adequately protect New Year's revelers. But Whitford faulted a disagreement over the division of labor for the New Orleans government's palpable skepticism to a type of barrier that on New Year's Day 2024 prevented a woman with a history of mental illness from plowing a car into a crowd of spectators at the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, where the Meridian firm is based. 'Where the benefit for everyone would be is police should be doing police work, fire should be doing fire work and emergency services should be providing emergency services,' Whitford said. 'And I think public works or the private sector should be responsible for putting out equipment' like the Archer barriers. Spokespeople for New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration did not respond to a request for comment. The administration ostensibly oversees a municipal government division tasked with 'providing physical security at … events', and it has the authority to enter into arrangements with private service providers. New Orleans acquired 41 Archer barriers in 2017 under the administration of Cantrell's mayoral predecessor, Mitch Landrieu, as part of a $40m public safety package implemented as a countermeasure to deadly car rammings aimed at crowds in Nice, Berlin, London, New York and Barcelona. Nonetheless, when crowds descended on Bourbon Street to celebrate the beginning of 2025 less than two weeks after a deadly truck attack at a German Christmas market, New Orleans officials left their Archer barriers stowed away. Officials also left down two other kinds of blockades meant to protect crowds from motorists meaning them harm – road-blocking, cylindrical bollards and a wedge barrier that can be hydraulically raised or lowered in seconds. City officials had varied explanations when confronted after a former US military member sympathetic to the Islamic State (IS) terror group's cause drove a pickup truck up three blocks of Bourbon Street, killing or injuring more than 70 people before he crashed and was killed in a shootout with police. They said the bollards needed repairs after being worn down by the rigors of one of the world's most zealously festive thoroughfares. The wedge barrier allegedly had a history of malfunctioning, though the manufacturer later said the city essentially ignored its offer to inspect and repair the product if necessary. As for the Archer barriers, six days after the attack, Arnold went on a local radio station and conceded that they are effective at tilting back if struck by a motorist, getting 'tangled under the vehicle and dig[ging] into the street and … [doing] a massive amount of damage'. He complained, however, that 'moving them takes significant effort that must be thought of a couple of days before'. 'And once they're deployed, moving them takes usually two to three people,' he added. Two days after Arnold's remarks, the president of an independent government watchdog group sent an email to LeJon Roberts, the New Orleans police commander in charge of officers patrolling Bourbon Street and the surrounding French Quarter neighborhood. The email from the president of the New Orleans metropolitan crime commission, Rafael Goyeneche, contained a link to a YouTube video which showed a woman with gray hair effortlessly and single-handedly pushing and pulling an Archer barrier, using equipment from Meridian allowing one to assemble what is essentially a hand dolly cart. 'Do you have access [to] these?' Goyeneche wrote. Roberts replied: 'The two we have are inoperable due to damage.' The reply conspicuously did not say when police realized they were broken – or if they took steps to either repair or replace them. Asked for comment on that exchange, Goyeneche said he recalled trading emails with Roberts but declined to elaborate much. He did say he got the impression that this equipment 'must have been put away and forgotten about' – and that he thought it was unusual this 'type of stuff … [would be] the police department's responsibility'. Meanwhile, Whitford described initially having repeated telephone calls to various city officials unreturned after the attack. He eventually got through to Arnold, who on 9 January informed Cantrell and other members of her staff that Meridian would come to town to update the city's supply of Archers. The company would also 'set them up appropriately and provide training' to police, Arnold wrote. It was in the ensuing days when Whitford encountered officers' concerns about possible back injuries and musings about whether other municipal employees were better suited for the work. Despite that, during Super Bowl week and in advance of Carnival, Meridian's barriers have been seen along Bourbon Street and at other spots in the French Quarter. That included the city's Jackson Square and nearby St Louis cathedral, where light shows were projected on the building's exterior. They were also seen erected outside New Orleans' Saenger Theater, which hosted the NFL Honors ceremony recognizing the league's best from the preceding season. Meridian then announced that the city had agreed to rent about 900 additional barriers to protect the city's traditional Mardi Gras parade route largely along its iconic St Charles Avenue in time for when the peak of the festive season kicked off on 21 February. Emails showed the arrangement would cost the city $200 a barrier for each day of parades, with any Meridian staffers hired to oversee specific access points costing a daily fee of $750. Whitford said the city expressed a willingness to pay for the arrangement. But a disagreement over whether to completely ban vehicular traffic along the route at certain times on days with parades – rather than only on the side of the street used by the floats and marching units – prompted Meridian and New Orleans officials to effectively cancel the agreement. After hiring former New York and Los Angeles police chief William Bratton to harden its security plans for the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras, city officials have lined the side of St Charles open to motorists ahead of parades with water-filled barricades designed to serve as impediments that drivers must slow down to get around. The barriers are arrayed to create what is known as a 'serpentine' traffic pattern – or, in car racing parlance, a series of chicanes. Officials have also resorted to lining the St Charles median – or, as New Orleans refers to it, the neutral ground – where many spectators gather early to watch parades with concrete barriers, which can be effective in deflecting sidelong blows from cars. WWL Louisiana also reported that Cantrell is considering making Bourbon Street exclusively for pedestrians rather than continuing to permit car traffic at times when crowds aren't as dense. Unlike Archer barriers, Whitford said, neither concrete nor water-filled barricades are certified by the US's homeland security department under a congressional act incentivizing anti-terrorism technology. Yet Whitford said he was glad the city had implemented those measures at least, when in years past neither were present. 'They have made some improvements in safety – it's reasonable to say that,' Whitford said that. 'For it to be the safest possible, it would be shutting down [the route] entirely. 'And the city is heading in that direction. But they have still made a decision not to make this a pedestrian [only] event; they've made a decision to allow some vehicle traffic.'
The Guardian
12-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
New Orleans Mardi Gras parades to be shielded by barriers, says manufacturer
New Orleans plans to protect large sections of its Mardi Gras parade routes with mobile 700lb steel barriers that are designed to prevent intentional vehicle rammings – but were not deployed on the night that the city endured the deadly Bourbon Street truck attack at the beginning of the year, according to the blockades' manufacturer. The Meridian Rapid Defense Group announced that the city would expand its renewed use of the company's Archer 1200 barriers in a recent statement issued after the firm's chief executive officer indicated time was running out to be able to get the blockades where they needed to be for Carnival celebrations culminating in Mardi Gras on 4 March. The former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration had acquired an initial inventory of Archer barriers – certified by the US's homeland security department under a congressional act incentivizing anti-terrorism technology – in 2017 in response to deadly car rammings aimed at crowds in Nice, Berlin, London, New York and Barcelona. But as a crowd of revelers descended on New Orleans's globally renowned Bourbon Street to ring in 2025 on the morning of 1 January, the administration of Landrieu's successor – Mayor LaToya Cantrell – had chosen to leave its Archer barriers in storage. They were one of three types of barriers meant to prevent motorists from purposely targeting crowds that the city had acquired but then did not use on the day of the attack on Bourbon Street, which itself unfolded less than two weeks after a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, was fatally targeted in similar fashion. The Bourbon Street attack killed 14 people and injured nearly 60 others before police officers were able to fatally shoot the US army veteran who was inspired by the Islamic State (IS). Along with multiple investigations focusing on the assailant, New Orleans officials are grappling with civil litigation from wounded victims and loved ones of those slain who allege that the city failed to adequately protect crowds before the attack. Cantrell's administration subsequently hired the former New York and Los Angeles police chief William Bratton to review as well as fortify the city's security plans against future threats. Perhaps the first major test was the NFL Super Bowl that New Orleans hosted on Sunday, which did not see any of the 'copycat or retaliatory attacks' that authorities warned the public about after the killings on Bourbon Street. Leading up to and throughout the Super Bowl, Meridian's Archer barriers were a ubiquitous sight along with personnel from numerous local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that were part of the top-level special event assessment rating – or 'Sear' classification – given to the big game. Barriers that Meridian provided to the city to supplement its initial stash were seen in place along Bourbon Street and throughout the surrounding French Quarter – including at the city's St Louis cathedral, where light shows were projected on the building's exterior. They were also seen erected outside a theater which hosted the NFL Honors celebration night recognizing the league's best players and performances of the preceding season. New Orleans is bracing for even larger gatherings as the peak of the Mardi Gras season – arguably known best for numerous street parades throughout the city – kicks off on 21 February. To that end, Meridian officials said its teams would be shielding substantial portions of the city's parade routes with its barriers. The route used by many of the parades, generally along Saint Charles Avenue, is about 4 miles long. Meridian's announcement on 6 February did not elaborate on many specifics. But, in an interview on New Orleans's WWL Radio in January, Meridian's CEO, Peter Whitford, said it would take the city renting an additional 900 barriers to protect the parade route. He said it would not be the first time the company has been counted on to protect such festivities. For the annual Rose Parade in its home city of Pasadena, California, Meridian lines up about 600 Archer barriers, which can be wheeled in and out of place in minutes. Whitford told WWL Radio it takes a team of 20 people about 31 minutes to secure that route. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion And in fact, at the Rose Parade on New Year's Day 2024, a woman who allegedly had a history of mental illness tried to ram her car past an Archer barricade, which incapacitated her vehicle and saved spectators from being injured or worse. Whitford told WWL Radio that he realized the barriers would need to be deployed and then removed constantly at the height of the Mardi Gras season because streets are only closed temporarily for the parades. But he said the Formula One racing series has availed itself of Meridian's Archer barriers to protect its grand prix in Las Vegas, which generally takes place along the drag colloquially known as the Strip. Las Vegas does not shut down its Strip for the duration of the race weekend, meaning Meridian essentially has to close and reopen the street four times nightly while F1 is in town. 'We would do exactly the same for Mardi Gras,' Whitford said to the station. During that conversation, Whitford said New Orleans' government had not responded to a proposal to fortify its parade route with Meridian's Archer barriers, and 'we're very close to not having enough time' to implement it even if the city wanted to do so. But days later, Meridian announced New Orleans had accepted the proposal, prompting Whitford to say in an accompanying statement: 'The city really understands the idea of a so-called gold standard and that means teaming with a company such as Meridian.' The city confirmed talks with the company but declined to discuss any resulting arrangements or why it had not put out the barriers on 1 January. A statement from Meridian and attributed to the New Orleans police superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick, said the federal government's decision to give its highest Sear level to Mardi Gras positioned the city to be 'able to provide this type of safety'.
