Updated on January 1, 2025, at 2:43 p.m. ET

Despite the devastating terror attack that killed at least 10 people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the early-morning hours of New Year’s Day, it seemed at first as though the Sugar Bowl college-football playoff game would continue tonight in the city’s Superdome, less than two miles from the carnage. This afternoon, officials announced they would postpone the game for at least 24 hours.

Getting on with activities as normal, to whatever extent is possible, is the correct approach. Responses to terror or violent attacks need to be based on the specifics of the incident, but the default should always be to remain open. A nation, any nation, must have the capacity to mourn and move forward simultaneously.

The question isn’t whether proceeding with scheduled events is disrespectful to those who have been directly affected by terror. In some ways, it obviously is; the Sugar Bowl is only a college-football game. But the decision should be based less on emotion and more on the level of ongoing risk, and the available security, for those who are asked to continue with their lives.

First, can the situation legitimately be described as no longer posing a continuing danger? In 2015 in Paris, a wave of terror attacks over one long night resulted in 130 deaths. The entire country was placed under what amounted to a three-month lockdown, with most public events canceled. That made some sense, given the sophistication and planning behind those attacks, and the fact that a concert hall and sporting venue had been targeted. “People have come from all over the country,” Representative Troy Carter of Louisiana told CBS about today’s attack, “but nothing is more important than public safety and making sure that we’re protecting the citizens and visitors alike.”

In a statement, the FBI identified the suspect as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas. He was killed at the scene by law-enforcement officers. An Islamic State flag had been located in the vehicle, the FBI said, and law enforcement is working to determine the suspect’s affiliations. Although what additional information might be available to the FBI remains unclear, the unified messaging suggests they are not overly concerned about continuing risk.

Second, if a city chooses to close down or delay events, does it have clear standards for what will allow it to reopen? This was the dilemma after the Boston Marathon bombings on a Monday in 2013, when the two terrorists initially evaded law enforcement. After the brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who had carried out the attack, killed an MIT police officer while making their escape, the governor asked residents of nearby towns to remain indoors as the search proceeded. The governor’s request, accepted by the scared public rather than enforced, ceased to be sustainable as the search dragged on for an entire day. European cities such as Brussels have faced the same issue after major attacks. It is easy to close down but harder to have metrics for what is perfectly safe, because that is an impossible standard.

Third, can public-safety resources and planning be redeployed or reassessed in light of the terror attack without forcing the city to a standstill? A preplanned sports event, such as the Sugar Bowl, already has in place safety and security protocols that can be amended in just a few hours to allow for more resources from other jurisdictions and changes to vehicle access. Indeed, just a day after Boston’s lockdown, the Red Sox played at Fenway with a ramped-up public-safety presence. The Hall of Fame slugger David Ortiz memorably welcomed the anxious crowd by saying, “This is our fucking city.” He was reflecting a sense that terrorists elevate their cause if they can affect entire populations, and the best response can be an insistent normalcy.

There is no perfect answer to the challenge posed by an attack, but asking the public to stay put can be unnecessary. In Maine in 2023, after the tragic shooting of 18 victims by a lone gunman, the town of Lewiston and areas across southern Maine went into shelter-in-place mode for several days until he was found dead from suicide. Fear and isolation may have been unnecessarily amplified by the lockdown, originally issued for an indefinite period.

After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush tried to calm a grieving nation by telling citizens to still “go shopping for their families.” The quote has been mocked as both tone-deaf (the term consumer patriotism was coined) and insensitive, but the for is often forgotten in the retelling. No matter how terrible an attack, we still need to be there for one another—whether that means gathering or grieving or, when the time comes, just watching a football game.