Carnival 2022 in New Orleans is still officially "a little bit in limbo," a leader of the Mayor's Mardi Gras Advisory Council said Wednesday, but krewe leaders are optimistic they will be allowed to parade after the COVID-19 pandemic scrubbed their 2021 processions.
“We are moving forward as if everything is happening,” council co-chairman James Reiss III of the Rex organization told about two dozen krewe leaders.
There will be changes, however, possibly including a new requirement for barrier devices to keep parade goers away from the gaps in tandem floats – large floats made of two, three or more segments joined together like box cars.
The tandem float safety barrier, a flexible, translucent net designed by Kern Studios, is meant to prevent parade goers from trying to cross between segments of tandem floats.
These were proposed after two spectators were caught and killed in the gap between multi-part floats in the 2020 Nyx and Endymion parades. The deaths led to a ban on tandem floats for the rest of Carnival 2020 and the search for a solution to the hazard.
In an interview earlier Wednesday, float builder Barry Kern said a City Hall representative asked him several months ago to design something to make tandem Mardi Gras floats safer. Kern, CEO and president of Mardi Gras World and Kern Studios, said he’s conceived a device that is “basically like a cargo net” strung between float segments on “heavy duty bungee cords.” The device, which is still being designed, will be translucent, flexible and “not super complicated,” he said.
Kern said City Hall approached him because his company produces the most tandem floats, which appear in the Endymion, Iris, Bacchus and Tucks parades, among others. He said the barriers are similar to those used in parades that he produces at Universal Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida.
The materials might cost as little as $100, Kern said, but he's not certain what the cost of the final product will be. The expense will be borne by the krewes, he said.
Kern said he’s confident the design will meet the safety needs of parades and will be implemented. He said he plans to put a sample of the device on display as a model for other float-building companies to inspect.
City Hall representative Bryon Cornelison said the proposed ordinance has been circulated among City Council members, but he was unsure how long it will take for the proposal to become law.
We initially took offense when the cop ordered us away from the float.
At the Feb. 19, 2020, Nyx parade, witnesses said Geraldine Carmouche, 58, was killed when she tried to cross over the middle of a tandem float. Three days later, Joseph Sampson, 58, reportedly slipped or was pushed between the segments of a tandem float in the Endymion parade and was killed. Both parades were cut off at the site of the tragedies.
Carmouche’s family sued the Nyx organization, City Hall and others, alleging the gap between floats should have been blocked.
In the second shocking parade-related death of the 2020 Carnival season, a man was hit and killed by a float Saturday night as the Krewe of En…
