Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who carried out the terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s that killed 14, put together two bombs apparently using the powerful RDX compound that did not detonate but could have killed or wounded hundreds of people, NBC News reported on Wednesday.

“As horrible as it is that he killed and injured all of these people, it could have been exponentially worse in the truest sense of the term had these devices actually functioned,” said Scott Sweetow, a retired executive with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and former director of the FBI’s Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center.

Sweetow emphasized that “it would have been absolute carnage, [and] you’d be looking at literally hundreds of casualties” if a bomb made with RDX had gone off in the city’s French Quarter tourist area, comparing it to the force of multiple hand grenades thrown into a crowded street.

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