NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Several krewes are looking at whether last-minute parade schedule changes will have to happen this weekend with severe weather conditions expected.
A total of nine parades are scheduled to roll Saturday, and as of Wednesday night that hasn’t changed:
- Knights of Nemesis in St. Bernard Parish at 1:00 p.m.
- MadHatters in Metairie at 5:00 p.m.
- Olympia in Covington at 6:00 p.m.
- Six parades in Uptown New Orleans: Ponchartrain at 11:30 a.m., Legion of Mars (following), Choctaw (following), Freret (following), Sparta (following), and Pygmalion (following)
The threat of severe storms is expected to ramp up beginning Saturday afternoon and lasting into the evening, leading to several krewe leaders already looking at the possibility of implementing contingency plans.
For Nemesis, a schedule change would be the first time in the krewe’s history, according to the krewe president.
“We are the only local parade in St. Bernard Parish. It’s the only Mardi Gras parade,” said Billy Showalter, President of the Knights of Nemesis. “We basically have two options: we’re going to either move up a little bit or we have to go to our rescheduled day which will be Monday, probably six o’clock Monday.”
Showalter said a final decision will be voted on when the board of Nemesis meets Thursday evening. He hopes to have a clearer picture of the forecasted weather conditions by then.
He said he hopes to move the parade up a couple of hours Saturday if needed.
“It’s a real group effort. Fortunate for us, we have a core group of people that’s on our board, and it’s not a one-day deal,” he said.
As for MadHatters, Captain Joey Lacoste said they’ve been told by parish officials that, in all likelihood, they would have to reschedule the parade for Sunday.
But the timing on Sunday remains in question, especially with the Krewe of Atlas scheduled to roll at 4:00 p.m.
“We expect to have a very, very good day Sunday, especially if the weather is nice,” Lacoste said.
“It’s very tough to move from one day to another,” he continued. “We’ve been so fortunate, all of the bands that roll with our floats are staying with us, and most of the marching krewes are staying. We should have a parade that’s very close to what we planned initially.”
As for the six planned Uptown parades, city officials addressed potential changes in a press conference Wednesday morning.
“We will continue to work with them, those Saturday krewes, to see what we can do to keep them safe and let the parades roll,” said Collin Arnold, New Orleans’ Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. “We are not in the mood of cancelling parades. We are in the mood of rescheduling them, and we do have some limited availability to do that.”
But, again, city and krewe leaders are waiting for more information before making any final decisions.
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