NEW ORLEANS — The city of New Orleans has canceled Thursday night's parades as southeast Louisiana is under a high wind advisory city officials announced Thursday afternoon.
The Krewe of Muses will be rescheduled to 4:45 p.m. Friday. The Krewe of Babylon will follow Muses at 5:15 p.m. Those parades will start at Napoleon and Perrier and skip the traditional Magazine part of their routes.
The Krewe of Chaos will roll Sunday after the Krewe of Thoth. Chaos will lineup at Napoleon and Magazine.
The city said that the rescheduled parades will be "floats only" and include no marching groups.
Saturday, Feb. 22
Sunday, Feb. 23
New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Sean Ferguson said he deeply regretted having to tell the public that the parades were canceled. The police chief said the cancellation was because of high winds and other weather factors.
"We want the public to know that we took every consideration possible to ensure this is the right decision at this point and time," Ferguson said. "We have been in constant communication with the captains of every crew. We thank them for their cooperation."
"It became very clear, probably about noon, that the winds would be higher than we're comfortable with," said Colin Arnold, the city's Homeland Security Chief.
The krewes of Babylon, Chaos and Muses were set to roll on the Uptown route, but a wind advisory for possible winds as high as 30 miles per hour and higher gusts made the decision to call off the parades necessary.
The cancellation comes one night after tragedy struck at the Krewe of Nyx parade, forcing the second half of the parade not to roll.
A 58-year-old woman was killed as she fell between two sides of a tandem float in the parade.
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