Towed During Mardi Gras? Separate City Tows From Ours

City tows and private tows are not the same call

Parking near a posted parade route is how a lot of Carnival nights end at the pound. Temporary signs, bagged meters, and no-parking notices go up along the route days before the first float. If those signs were up and the car is gone, start with the City — not a wrecker you found on a search result. 24/7 Rapid Towing did not take that car, and we cannot walk it out of a municipal lot.

What we do during Carnival is the same private work we do the rest of the year: light-duty tows, jump starts, lockouts, and tire changes for drivers who broke down, locked the keys in, or went dead near a route. Licensed, insured, bonded, family-owned, open 24/7/365, no after-hours surcharge.

Check signage and the City’s published rules

Read the signs on the block you parked, photograph them if the car is still there, and confirm current parking and towing information on the City of New Orleans site at nola.gov/towing. Parade calendars and route maps change by year. We will not recite a fine, a storage fee, or a towing-law amount. Those numbers belong to the City and they change.

If you are still deciding where to leave the car, pick a legal space off the posted route and walk to the parade. That is the only reliable way to avoid a city tow. We cannot “hold a spot” or talk a city wrecker out of a hook that already started.

If the City towed your car

1. Assume the Department of Public Works Auto Pound at 400 N. Claiborne Ave until the City’s page says otherwise.
2. Use nola.gov/towing and the contacts listed there. Confirm the car is actually at the pound.
3. Bring the identification and paperwork the City lists. Pay the City, not us, for release and storage.
4. When you have the release, call (504) 414-8034 if you want a licensed ride home or to a shop.
5. We quote $75 hook-up plus $4 per mile, or $95 plus $4 per mile on a flatbed, before we roll.

The longer version of that sequence lives on our impounded-car guide. Do not skip it if you are standing at an empty curb on St. Charles.

What we do during Carnival

Dispatch stays open. Drivers still run Uptown along St. Charles Avenue and Magazine Street, and Mid-City along Canal Street — the two corridors that carry most parade traffic. We plan around street closures instead of charging into a barricaded block. That is why we ask for the cross street and whether the route is still closed.

A dead battery in a side-street lot, keys locked in on a cross street, or a breakdown after the last float are ordinary roadside calls. Jumps, lockouts, and spare-on tire changes start at $65. If the car will not roll after a jump, we convert the call to a tow on the same visit. Average metro arrival is about 30 minutes. Around active parade closures, that ETA can run longer. We will say so before you approve the truck.

How dispatch works around street closures

A truck cannot legally drive through a live parade or a posted emergency route. We stage at the nearest legal street and walk the last stretch if that is faster than circling. Tell us the color of the car, a cross street, and which side of the barricade you are on. “Uptown somewhere” is not enough on a night when St. Charles is closed for miles.

If you are on I-10 trying to get into the city during Carnival traffic, the I-10 breakdown guide is the better safety page. If you need the rate math after the route reopens, use the guides hub or call. More neighborhood notes sit on the service areas hub.

“Carnival nights we get two kinds of calls. One is ‘the City took my car’ — we send them to 400 N. Claiborne and nola.gov. The other is ‘we died on a side street off St. Charles.’ That second one we can work, as long as you give us a cross street and a honest picture of the barricades.”

Dispatch Manager, 24/7 Rapid Towing

Last updated: September 21, 2026