Ecstatic fans were today still celebrating on the streets of New Orleans as the city nearly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina feted its first-ever Super Bowl win by their beloved Saints.

White fireworks burst in the distance. Strangers hugged, whooped and yelled in the streets, waving flags, shaking cowbells and dancing to spontaneous brass bands.

College students embraced restaurant waiters. A homeless man toasted beers with tourists. Camera flashbulbs popped. Motorists honked horns with a glee usually heard only at Carnival.

Stunned by their team’s fourth-quarter thrashing of the Indianapolis Colts, Saints fans in the French Quarter at first seemed speechless, but happily so.

The only intelligible sound from the celebratory crowds was repeated choruses of the chant: “Who Dat? Who Dat! Who Dat say dey going to beat dem Saints?"

“This is the pinnacle of my life - now I can die!” said Randy Sumrall, 46, who never moved back home after fleeing Katrina but came back to New Orleans to watch the big game with his girlfriend and old neighbours. “I knew they were going to win,” he added. “Why would I want to be in Miami? This is where you feed off all the longing for ultimate victory - and recovery."

The emotion was equally intense on the pitch at the Sun Bowl Stadium, where Drew Brees, the 31-year-old quarterback who moved to the Saints while the city was still waterlogged, was trying not to cry as he held his baby son, Baylen, clad a Saints jersey with his father’s name on the back.

“Four years ago, who ever thought this would happen?” said Brees, whose performance won him the title of most valuable player in New Orleans’ 31-17 victory.

“Eighty-five percent of the city was under water, all the residents evacuated all over the country, people never knowing if they were coming back or if New Orleans would come back. But not only the city came back, and the team came back... when the players got there, we all looked at one another and said, ’We’re going to rebuild together.’

“We leaned on each other,” Brees said, pausing as the tears came again. “This is the culmination of that. We just believed in ourselves and we knew that we had an entire city and maybe an entire country behind us.

“What can I say? I tried to imagine what this moment would be like for a long time and it’s better than expected.

“I’m just feeling like it was all meant to be. What can I say? The birth of my son and in the first year of his life we won a Super Bowl championship.”