Parades, floats, costumes mark Fat Tuesday in New Orleans

They are natives of Louisiana but recently moved to OH where they are celebrating Mardi Gras.

Marissa Grecko, 11, of Stapleton, Ala., was in front of the Dairy Queen, sporting a Mardi Gras mask.

Biloxi, which debuted its first Mardi Gras parade in 1908, today hosts more than 20 parades cheered on by half a million revelers. Tuesday marks one of his busiest days of the year, but Bob took some time this morning to put a little south in our mouth by serving up some boiled crawfish, barbecue shrimp and a little crawfish etouffee. If you can’t make it out to Mardi Gras, the New Orleans Times-Picayune is offering a live video stream of the celebrations in the Big Easy with a street camera set up in the French Quarter. One especially prized “throw” are the coconuts given out by members of Zulu.

Mardi Gras is the city’s biggest tourist attraction, and thousands of people have converged on the city in recent weeks to see the elaborate parades, floats, marching bands and dance groups that wind through the city’s streets.

“Kids having fun, that’s what Mardi Gras is about”, O’Conner said. For example, Rex’s colors purple, green and gold have become the symbolic colors of Mardi Gras as well. The two truck parades that follow Rex mark the end of the major parades in the city until 2017.

Riders on the floats generally wear masks and throw beads or other specially made trinkets to people along the parade route.

“I came a year ago and the Zulu parade is what did it for me, and I wanted to come experience it again”, he said. The coconuts have been hollowed out, and the outside hair is removed; they’re then decorated with glitter or elaborate designs. They always come in the shape of a ring because that symbolizes unity of people and bringing everyone together.

Dabne Whitemore came to the door in her white bathrobe after hearing the gang and their drums coming from down the street.

A police chase that began at a mall on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish went into New Orleans’ Central City neighborhood Monday night and ended with Jefferson deputies fatally shooting a man they said tried to back a auto into them, Sheriff Newell Normand told WWL-TV and other media outlets on Monday.