As December approaches, the small city of Natchitoches with a population of 17,195 transforms into a thriving Christmas destination known as the City of Lights. Roughly 100,000 locals and tourists alike come flooding in every weekend for the Natchitoches Christmas Festival. As the streets fill with tourists looking for holiday fun, the influx of traffic that comes with them creates a greater job for local authorities.

The Natchitoches Police Department works with the Northwestern State University of Louisiana University Police department and surrounding parishes police departments to control traffic during this peak in tourism.

This season, the city does not only have to monitor the usual flow of traffic but assess drivers as they enter the in-construction roundabout at Highway 6.

While a large increase of visitors is bound to bring in traffic, the Natchitoches Christmas parade also plays a part in clogging streets. The parade route begins on NSU’s campus, goes down to Front Street, loops around Second Street and ends back on campus. Because of this, many roads that locals use daily are closed for long periods of time, making Natchitoches drivers maneuver their way around the city.

John Greely, public information officer for the Natchitoches Police Department, explained that their deputies will put contraflows in place within key locations of Natchitoches during the festival to control traffic; contraflows are temporary instructions for vehicles to travel in the opposite direction of a lane’s normal traffic flow.

“Basically, we’ll put officers at the intersections of Jefferson, University, Second and the little roads in between,” Greely said. “And every vehicle that heads towards University Parkway — we’ll try to get them going west towards I-49.”

This approach to controlling traffic during the Christmas festival prioritizes exit routes in Natchitoches.

“It’s all just crowd control and trying to keep everybody safe. You get a lot of folks that aren’t very familiar with Natchitoches, so it’s really just getting folks to exit points to try to get them out of town safely,” Greely said.

To ensure a smooth operation in this initiative, several police departments from the surrounding areas offer their service to the Natchitoches community during the Christmas season.

In 2022, the Natchitoches Police Department published a press release to thank all participating departments. The press release stated that a total of 140 officers and deputies of Louisiana Police departments came to Natchitoches to assist during the Christmas festival. This included 40 deputies from the Natchitoches Parish Sheriff’s Office, 21 troopers from Louisiana State Police, 12 officers from the NSU Police Department, six officers from the Alexandria Police Department, six deputies from Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office, four officers from Lake Charles Police Department, three officers from Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office, three deputies from Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office, three deputies from Webster Parish Sheriff’s Office, two deputies from Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office, two deputies from Grant Parish Sheriff’s Office, one officer from Eunice Police Department and one deputy from Red River Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies and officers from these departments are stationed sporadically throughout the historic district of Natchitoches for the festival.

“From Front, Second and Third Street, we’ll have officers and deputies all down there and then, once the fireworks end, we’ll expand citywide to try and help with traffic control,” Greely said. “It sounds like it’s a big production, but it’s really quite easy once everybody gets on the same page.”

Prior to any action toward these efforts, leadership from participating police departments meet members of the Natchitoches Convention and Visitors Bureau to discuss details of how to safely host the Christmas festival. Greely mentioned that a part of this meeting includes traffic control.

One large topic of discussion this year surrounded the ongoing construction of the Highway 6 roundabout.

“I believe they were told that it was gonna be completed by the festival weekend, but if it’s not completed, then it is going to be deemed a traffic hazard, and we’ll 100% have police down there to try and point folks in the right direction,” Greely said.

Erin Mills, public information officer for the Louisiana Department of Development and Transportation, said that the original plan to have the roundabout completed by the first festival weekend is no longer in action. Rather, they hope to have all construction completed before Christmas itself. The project is currently estimated to be completed by the middle of December.

“It’s well known that we’ve been trying to get this fully completed before what everybody knows is a very large holiday season for the city of Natchitoches, but it won’t be done by this [Nov. 23 to 24] weekend,” Mills said.

There are no official precautionary measures in place to station police officers near the roundabout construction site.

“We would monitor traffic and if there appears to be significant congestion or people just simply cannot manage to maneuver through there, just like any construction project, then we would enlist the help of law enforcement,” Mills said.

The meeting was also to identify the specific responsibilities for officers and deputies during the Christmas festival season.

“Generally, the university police department handles the parade, where it first starts on campus,” Greely said. “They generally help us with a lot of the floats and doing all the portable breath tests on anybody that’s driving.”

In addition to overseeing the parade floats, NSU University Police are stationed at all the exit points of University Parkway. Wesley Harrell, University Police captain, elaborated on these responsibilities.

“We assist them with traffic control on University Parkway throughout Christmas Festival Day,” Harrell said. “We limit the flow of traffic to the downtown area and close parade routes.”

Harrell views this sense of collaboration between police departments as an opportunity to better the community.

“We have a good working relationship with other Law Enforcement agencies in our region. We all work together on various events. The ability to be able to support each other is vital in keeping the Natchitoches and NSU communities safe,” Harrell said.

Tommy Carnline, Chief of Staff and public information officer for Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office, agrees with Harrell on the importance of collaboration between police departments.

“We’ve assisted in many festivals all over the state, that’s kind of what law enforcement does,” Carnline said. “Anytime there’s a request for assistance, no matter what it’s for, then you answer that call, so we’re happy to do it.”

Carnline shared that the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office will typically send anywhere from six to 12 deputies depending on the need from Natchitoches.

“We are more than happy to assist them in their mission of providing a safe and happy family environment for the Natchitoches Christmas Festival. It is a yearly tradition that we all have honored and been part of,” Carnline said.

With the delay of the roundabout completion and the start of a busy holiday season, law enforcement work together to monitor and secure the city.