Second person killed by Mardi Gras float in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS —  A man was struck and killed by a Mardi Gras float during a raucous weekend street parade in New Orleans, becoming the second person in days killed along a parade route during this year’s Carnival season, authorities said.

The man was fatally injured Saturday evening as the popular Krewe of Endymion was rolling, New Orleans police said in a statement. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office was to release his name and cause of death after completing an autopsy and notifying his family.

The remainder of Endymion’s parade was scrapped Saturday evening. Police said 13 floats had already gone ahead when the accident occurred with the 14th float in the formation. Remaining floats that followed, along with marching groups, were diverted from the accident scene on Canal Street, a wide route popular with parade viewers in the Mississippi River port city.

New Orleans police said first responders swiftly converged on the site, tweeting out calls for crowds to avoid the area.

The float, with its gaudy lights still twinkling, was cordoned off by police on horseback and on foot. All around, streets were strewn with tossed bead necklaces and trinkets thrown from the floats.

The death prompted an outpouring of sympathy from other parade participants, who were working quickly to adjust their parades.

“The Krewe of Orpheus extends its heartfelt sympathy to the families of those whose lives were lost in the recent parade incidents,” Krewe of Orpheus Captain Sonny Borey said in a statement, echoing those of other parade participants Sunday.

The fatality came as New Orleans was mourning the death of a 58-year-old woman who — witnesses said — was run over by a parade float Wednesday night.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell said that the south Louisiana city was grieving.

“To be confronted with such tragedy a second time at the height of our Carnival celebrations seems an unimaginable burden to bear. The City and the people of New Orleans will come together, we will grieve together, and we will persevere together,” Cantrell said in a statement.

On Sunday, Cantrell reemphasized the need for safety precautions and said the issue will be examined in the coming days.

“In the weeks and months ahead, we will be looking at further changes that need to be made to make our routes and our celebrations more safe — but the work starts right now,” she said in a statement.

Also Sunday, a person riding on a float in the Thoth parade in New Orleans fell from a lower level and was injured. City officials tweeted via NOLA Ready, an emergency preparedness site, that the float rider was in stable condition at a trauma center. That person wasn’t immediately identified.

Wednesday’s fatality occurred during the parade of the Mystic Krewe of Nyx, an all-female Carnival group. Witnesses said the woman, New Orleans native Geraldine Carmouche, had apparently tried to cross between two parts of a tandem float and tripped over a hitch connecting the sections.

Tandem floats, similar to the one involved in Saturday’s incident, are multiple floats connected together and pulled by one tractor. Tandem floats would not be allowed for the few days remaining in the 2020 festival season, city agency NOLA Ready tweeted.

The Krewe of Bacchus was splitting its tandem floats for its Bacchus Sunday evening parade at the city’s request, the group said in a statement. The Krewe of Orpheus said it would follow the city’s safety recommendations for its parade Monday.

The Carnival season is nearing its traditional all-out Fat Tuesday celebration, the raucous climax of a week or more of parades and partying.

The deaths also come just a year after a car sped into a bicycle lane near a parade route, hitting nine people and killing two bicyclists not far from where the Krewe of Endymion formation had just passed. A man identified as the driver was subsequently charged with two counts of vehicular homicide.

Before this year, the most recent Carnival float-related fatality in Louisiana happened in 2009, when a 23-year-old rider fell from a float and in front of its wheels in Carencro, about 120 miles west of New Orleans.

In 2008, a rider getting off a three-part float after the Krewe of Endymion parade in New Orleans was killed when the float lurched forward and the third section ran over him, police said.