President Joe Biden on Monday, Jan. 6, visited a makeshift memorial at the site of the deadly New Year’s attack in New Orleans, holding a moment of silence before meeting with grieving families and attending a prayer service. Biden and first lady Jill Biden made their first stop in the city Monday evening at a memorial that sprung up on the city’s famous Bourbon Street, where the attack began last week when an Army veteran drove a truck into revelers, killing 14 and injuring 30 more. Flowers and messages had been left at the base of more than 14 crosses erected on the sidewalk in the French Quarter. After Jill Biden placed white flowers at the memorial, she and the president stood in silence and bowed their heads. Joe Biden crossed himself, and the couple headed to the historic St. Louis Cathedral nearby, where the president was expected to have a private meeting with the families of those killed and attend an interfaith prayer service. The visit is likely to be the last time Biden travels to the scene of a horrific crime as president to console families of victims. He has less than two weeks left in office. “I think what you’re going to see this president do today is show up for the community, be there for the community in the hardest time,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Louisiana. She went on, speaking about Biden’s own understanding of loss, and said, “He believes this is also an important part of the job that he believes he needs to do as president.” It’s a grim task that presidents perform, although not every leader has embraced the role with such intimacy as the 82-year-old Biden, who has experienced a lot of personal tragedy in his own life. His first wife and baby daughter died in a car accident in the early 1970s, and his eldest son, Beau, died of cancer in 2015. “I’ve been there. There’s nothing you can really say to somebody that’s just had such a tragic loss,” Biden told reporters Sunday in a preview of his visit. “My message is going to be personal if I get to get them alone.” Biden often takes the opportunity at such bleak occasions to speak behind closed doors with the families, offer up his personal phone number in case people want to talk later on and talk about grief in stark, personal terms. In addition to the meeting with families, Biden hoped to visit with first responders in New Orleans, according to Jean-Pierre. The Democratic president and the first lady will continue on to California Monday night, where they’re expected to land in Los Angeles. Tuesday he is expected to head to eastern Coachella Valley where he reportedly plans to establish the Chuckwalla National Monument, south of Joshua Tree National Park. The president is expected to sign a proclamation establishing the monument, according to published reports. This will be Biden’s first and likely last visit as president to Riverside County. Jill Biden has been to the area in the past. She spoke at an event in Rancho Mirage early last year. With a snowstorm hitting the Washington region on Monday, Biden’s trip began with Air Force One starting its takeoff from inside a large hangar instead of on the tarmac as thick snow covered the ground at Joint Base Andrews. In New Orleans on Jan. 1, the driver plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street. Fourteen revelers were killed along with the driver. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who steered his speeding truck around a barricade and plowed into the crowd, later was fatally shot in a firefight with police. Jabbar, an American citizen from Texas, had posted five videos on his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he proclaimed his support for the Islamic State militant group and previewed the violence that he would soon unleash. Related Articles News | Biden says Americans shouldn’t forget the 2021 Capitol attack but there won’t be a repeat this time News | Nippon, US Steel file suit against Biden administration, union, and rival after $15B deal scuttled News | Biden visits makeshift memorial in New Orleans where attack began that killed 14 and injured 30 News | Biden issues ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in most federal waters. Trump vows to undo it News | Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Denzel Washington receive Presidential Medal of Freedom Biden on Sunday pushed back against conspiracy theories surrounding the attack, and he urged New Orleans residents to ignore them. “I spent literally 17, 18 hours with the intelligence community from the time this happened to establish exactly what happened, to establish beyond any reasonable doubt that New Orleans was the act of a single man who acted alone,” he said. “All this talk about conspiracies with other people, there’s not evidence of that — zero.” The youngest victim was 18 years old, and the oldest was 63. Most victims were in their 20s. They came from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey and Great Britain. Jean-Pierre said Monday that Biden was directing additional resources to help New Orleans with major upcoming events, including Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl, with both events being assigned the highest level of federal support for security measures.