New Orleans Carnival season coming to an end as Lent begins
Fat Tuesday, which marks the end of the Carnival season, started before dawn in New Orleans and wraps up with a ceremonial clearing of Bourbon Street at midnight before the fasting season of Lent begins Wednesday.
The festivities were marred in the Alabama beach town of Gulf Shores where police said a car participating in the city's Fat Tuesday parade accidentally plowed into a band, injuring 12 people.
Mardi Gras may be a bawdy party in the French Quarter, but outside that area, it's often a family affair with parents dressing up their children in costumes or putting them on ladders to catch beads and trinkets.
Pete Fountain's Half-Fast Walking Club strutted from the famed Commander's Palace restaurant to the French Quarter, tossing beads and doubloons to recordings of his music.
In another part of the city, costumed people took part in the St. Anne's parade — an eclectic walking parade that starts in the Bywater and Marigny neighborhoods and ends in the French Quarter.
Linnea Eitmann and husband Adam were dressed in hand-made purple and cream colored costumes inspired by French royalty and the Brazilian samba — an homage to the French and Brazilian Mardi Gras traditions.
Video and photos from the scene show emergency workers helping injured members of the Gulf Shores High School band.
In Mississippi, a man watching Biloxi's Mardi Gras parade died after falling from the back of a pickup truck onto a piece of exposed rebar.