CNN
—

The New Year was just three hours old, the chorus of “Auld Lang Syne” and the sound of fireworks still ringing in the ears of revelers when the sound arrived raced down Bourbon Street – the beating heart of the French Quarter.

Jimmy Cothran and a friend had just entered a nightclub in New Orleans when a group of young women pushed their way in and took refuge under the tables.

“We didn’t take any chances,” said Cothran, who has lived in south Louisiana for 15 years. They ran upstairs to a balcony.

The attack — a brazen car bombing that investigators said was an act of ISIS-inspired terrorism — was already over when Cothran looked over the railing at the crime scene on Bourbon Street below.

“It was just an unimaginable accident,” he told CNN’s Pamela Brown. “The disfigurement and the scattered bodies. Something you can’t miss and will never forget.”

Authorities say the revelers’ paradise was turned into a battlefield at the hands of an American-born Army veteran from Texas. He planned to “run over as many people as possible,” said New Orleans Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick.

At least 14 people were killed, including a 27-year-old former Princeton football player and Louisiana native, a 37-year-old father of two and a 19-year-old University of Alabama student.

Dozens more were injured, including two police officers who were injured when they confronted the attacker as he got out of the truck. He was fatally shot.

Cothran, who was trapped in the nightclub, was unable to help despite first responder training and CPR certification, he said.

“That was even harder,” said Cothran, the designated driver that night. “But the fact that these people are someone’s people and they won’t be there this morning — that’s tough.”

The Big Easy was full.

Hotels within a two-mile radius of Caesars Superdome were nearly full, booked by up to 75,000 people who had come to the city to ring in 2025, attend concerts or watch the Georgia Bulldogs face Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl Irish to watch Wednesday night.

“Go Irish! Go buddy,” saleswoman Jamie Profenno said Tuesday afternoon as she sat in the French Quarter painting oyster shells decorated in the blue and gold of Notre Dame and the red of Georgia. “I’m not going to choose one,” she told CNN affiliate WVUE.

The Sugar Bowl parade began at 2 p.m. in the French Quarter, but some merrymakers had already gathered in Jackson Square, CNN affiliate WDSU reported. There they secured the seats where, 10 hours later, they could watch the lily – the city’s symbol, a three-petaled flower – in the New Orleans version of the ball drop in Times Square.

While rain hit New York, temperatures in New Orleans were in the mid-50s with a light breeze.

At midnight, fireworks lit up the sky and rose 1,000 feet above the Mississippi River before exploding in a cascade of colors.

“They need you at Canal and Bourbon.”

As the streets were still full of partygoers hours into the new year, surveillance footage showed images of a man later identified as the attacker walking the streets of the French Quarter between 1 and 2 a.m

Two of the pictures show him walking down Dauphine Street near Governor Nicholls Street around 2 a.m. wearing a long brown coat and jeans.

At 3:16 a.m., a surveillance camera captured a white pickup truck traveling northwest on Canal Street. In the footage, people are milling around – a couple sits in the back seat of a white SUV, while others stand idly on the median, apparently waiting for the tram.

The truck quickly turns onto Bourbon Street and appears to maneuver around a patrol vehicle with its lights flashing. It races out of the frame and races through a group of people standing in front of a pharmacy on the corner.

April McGee lay in her hotel room above Bourbon Street and thought the noise of the chaos below was fireworks, she told WDSU. But on the street, pedestrians and partygoers panicked.

Kimberly Stricklin of Mobile, Alabama, saw the truck mowing down passengers in a pedicab and later told WDSU that she couldn’t hear the screams. Kevin Garcia watched the vehicle speed down the sidewalk, the 22-year-old told CNN, hitting anyone in its path and throwing one person toward him. 18-year-old Zion Parsons hid in the gap between two bars while a “real horror movie” played in front of him.

“Anything the car hits is thrown – it’s thrown into the air and thrown away, right under the car,” Parsons told CNN. He was with two friends, killing time before they headed home to Gulfport, Mississippi. But as the truck passed, he realized that only one of his friends was hiding with him. The other was lying on the street.

“I just start screaming and screaming,” he said.

The truck eventually crashed further down in Bourbon. Footage taken outside the Royal Sonesta New Orleans Hotel – two blocks north of Canal Street – shows passers-by rushing toward a victim lying near the damaged pickup truck while uniformed officers appear to confront the driver.

Shots ring out. Bystanders flee.

A New Orleans Fire Department dispatcher called over the radio to first responders, “Responding to a mass casualty incident.” A vehicle drove into a crowd.”

“They need you,” the dispatcher said, “at Canal and Bourbon.”

Six blocks north, a crowd of officers standing outside a nightclub ran toward the scene while partygoers moved out of the way under neon signs. From the balcony of a club, Alex Birth-Mitchell captured footage of state troopers running across the street with long guns while the accident victims lay motionless on the sidewalk.

“It was absolute chaos,” said Birth-Mitchell, who had just entered the club when the carnage unfolded. He felt “lucky to be alive.”

“If we had waited outside, we might have been dead,” he said.

By sunrise Wednesday, additional local, state and federal law enforcement agencies had converged in the French Quarter, now an active crime scene. Television reporters positioned themselves nearby, and photojournalists’ view of the scene was blocked by coroner’s hearses parked at the end of Bourbon Street.

In the rented truck, investigators found an ISIS flag and a possible improvised explosive device (IED), the FBI said. Other potential IEDs were found elsewhere in the French Quarter.

Authorities identified the attacker as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar. In a series of videos that authorities believe he made while driving from Texas to Louisiana, Jabbar said he initially planned to kill his family but changed his plans and joined ISIS, according to several reports Officials briefed on the investigation report.

In New Orleans, officials urged tourists to carry on, enjoy the city but avoid Bourbon Street.

Some tried, but the mood outside Café du Monde late Wednesday morning was somber as dozens of customers waited for a seat at the iconic eatery known for its beignets.

The sounds of “Auld Lang Syne” could be heard again, this time a sad version from a musician’s tuba outside the café. A customer walked between police officers and handed them cups of coffee.

Georgia and Notre Dame fans appeared much more reserved in their team’s colors. By mid-afternoon, officials had postponed the Sugar Bowl until Thursday.

Other tourists like April and Paul McGee couldn’t bear the thought of staying a moment longer. They packed their luggage, left their hotel room and ended their trip early.

“We checked out,” she told WDSU. “Someone else can have our room. We don’t want it.”

CNN’s Michael Williams, Sara Smart, Andy Rose, Elizabeth Wolfe, Rebekah Riess, Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, Paul P. Murphy, Avery Schmitz and Jeremy Grisham contributed to this report.