NEW ORLEANS — Defiant revelers flocked to New Orleans’ Bourbon Street Thursday as the iconic stretch re-opened ahead of the Sugar Bowl — just 36 hours after 14 people were killed and dozens more were injured in a bloody New Year’s terror attack.
“The big reason why we came is to spite them,” Mississippian Mark Beaden told The Post as he strolled down Bourbon Street drinking with his wife Thursday.
“The hell with ISIS,” he said of the terror organization that 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar pledged allegiance to before speeding down the bustling Big Easy street in a rented Ford F-150 early Wednesday.
Beaden had no plans to attend the Sugar Bowl — the annual New Orleans college football game normally held on New Year’s Day that was postponed after the attack — but bought tickets Thursday to attend as an act of defiance.
“They can kiss my ass, how about that?” he said.
“You can’t deviate from the plans, then they win.”
Beaden was just one of many who had the same idea and headed to Bourbon Street, where a brass band played merry New Orleanian tunes and Mardi Gras beads and 14 yellow roses adorned the road where Jabbar’s rampage unfolded.
“It’s building morale because it was a tragic incident. This will lift everyone back up,” said Michigan resident Darryl Brownlee, 63, as he watched the musicians play.
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Bourbon Street was closed throughout New Year’s Day as police investigated the crime scene, but it reopened for festivities Thursday.
“They couldn’t keep it closed forever,” Brownlee said.
New Orleans resident Stephanie Drake, 44, walked down Bourbon Street waving a bundle of lit sage, saying it was “to get rid of all the really nasty energy that just happened down this road.”
“Nothing better than a good stick of sage to clear off all the gross, right?” Drake, who sells crystals, said. “It’s what I can do right now. I feel helpless, and this makes me feel like I’m doing something.”
Live updates: Everything to know about the New Orleans terror attack
Some workers along the iconic stretch who witnessed the horror attack even turned up, saying they wouldn’t be cowed by the likes of Jabbar.
“It was chaos, and it was a massacre,” said Jim Hill, the manager at Mango Mango Daiquiris on Bourbon Street who watched the terrorist speed by before he slammed into a crane blocks away before he was gunned down in a shootout with police.
“I hate what happened but I’m going to work tonight. I’m not going to let hate win and hide in my house,” he said.
Hill said he has every intention of showing up and opening his bar’s doors for the football game festivities Thursday night — and that the terrorist accomplished nothing but reminding people what matters most.
“I’m not going to live in fear. I’m going to live a better life.”
