Brian Damage
11-22-2006, 09:49 PM
Seven pole-mounted anemometers will transmit minute-by-minute wind measurements to handheld computers. Police and emergency management officials will relay the data to balloon navigators. Aerodynamic engineers and a liaison from the National Weather Service will advise the incident commander, a three-star police chief.
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Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
The Garfield balloon was prepared for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade today on West 81st Street.
These are among the new measures in place as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade marches for the 80th time Thursday, amid preparations worthy of a large-scale military operation.
But the precautions may not be enough to keep the giant balloons aloft.
A strong northeaster climbed up the East Coast today, driving a wall of rain and wind before it, with gusts expected at just about the speeds that parade organizers fear the most. As bleak as the weather are the memories: of 1997, when a Cat in the Hat balloon crashed into a lamppost, injuring four people and leaving one of them in a coma, and last year, when an M & M balloon sent the head of a street lamp crashing onto a woman using a wheelchair and onto her 11-year-old sister.
The poor weather and heightened oversight could ground some or all of the 12 big balloons — 2 fewer than last year — that are set to fly today. In the best case, they could be flown so low as to practically be floats. In the worst case, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg warned, the hapless helium-filled creatures could be pulled onto side streets and summarily deflated.
“First and foremost, we will make sure that we worry about safety before anything else,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said, “We’re very well prepared to guard against any eventuality, as far as the balloons are concerned.”
The mayor said that the parade has attractions beyond the giant balloons, including 36 other balloons and a float carrying Barry Manilow, the singer.
As the 12 giant balloons — including a new Pikachu and Flying Ace Snoopy, past parade favorites that have been redesigned for this year — were inflated yesterday afternoon and evening, on West 77th and 81st Streets and Central Park West around the American Museum of Natural History, some parade volunteers admitted to anxiety.
“If we can’t fly the balloons, sure we’ll be disappointed,” said Kathryn Kramer, 44, a Macy’s employee who lives in Yardley, Pa., who will be the flight captain for Flying Ace Snoopy. Ms. Kramer, who has handled balloons in every parade since 1985, described backup plans that could seem anticlimactic to spectators expecting towering cartoon figures: flight teams would simply “march and wave” to the crowds.
Current guidelines prohibit the giant balloons from being flown if sustained winds exceed 23 miles per hour or if gusts exceed 34 m.p.h. Michael E. Wyllie, the meteorologist in charge of the weather service’s forecasting office in Upton, N.Y., projected sustained winds of 20 to 25 m.p.h. and gusts of 30 to 35 m.p.h. for this morning.
“We’re probably going to be looking at limiting some of the larger balloons, and possibly not allowing them to be flown at all,” said Mr. Wyllie, who has participated in a series of conference calls with city officials about the parade.
A Macy’s spokeswoman, Elina Kazan, acknowledged that the outlook was grim.
“The forecast is quite disappointing,” she said yesterday, “but we are still hopeful and we are still inflating our balloons, because the call to fly or not fly the balloons will not be made until the morning.”
In the past, the decision to fly the balloons was made just before the 9 a.m. start of the parade, based on wind measurements taken at a weather station in Central Park. Along the parade route, workers used handheld anemometers — instruments that measure wind speed and direction — to make decisions about whether to fly the balloons at lower heights because of sudden gusts.
The wind measurements this year will be much more systematic. Anemometers will be mounted on poles along Central Park West at West 77th, 72nd and 59th Streets and along Broadway at West 51st, 46th, 42nd and 34th Streets. Each instrument will be monitored by a police officer and a representative of the Office of Emergency Management using a portable computer.
As each of the 12 big balloons approaches the intersections, the police officer will talk with the flight captain who walks ahead of the balloon, directing a flight team of 14 members and the 60 to 70 handlers who carry the balloon’s tethers. The officer will alert the captain about wind conditions, which can vary even from block to block, based on the height and layout of surrounding buildings. As in past years, a police officer will also march with each balloon.
After the 1997 accident, a 12-member panel appointed by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani recommended restrictions on the operation and size of the balloons and improved training of the volunteer balloon handlers.
Two months ago, a five-member task force appointed by Mr. Bloomberg to review last year’s accident found that the M & M balloon was traveling in an area significantly narrower than Macy’s guidelines allowed before its ropes got caught on a streetlight near Times Square.
The flight passageway or “envelope” — the width of the route free of obstruction — was supposed to be at least 62 feet from curb to curb, according to the report. In fact, however, the passageway as measured just north of the accident was 39 feet. The streetlight, which did not extend over the curb line, stood just outside this 39-foot passageway.
The task force directed that the maximum passageway be only 56 feet from now. Each balloon has its own guidelines for how high it should be flown, but the narrower envelope means that all balloons will be flown slightly lower than in the past. The task force also recommended that calculations of the envelope take into account obstructions along the route and not simply be measured from curb to curb.
Shannon D. Chandler, 45, a chaperone accompanying three students from Valley, Ala., who are part of the Macy’s Great American Marching Band, a contingent of 204 high school musicians from around the country, said he was nervous about what would happen to the balloons. “We’re worried we won’t get to see them,” he said.
The Police Department’s chief of patrol, Chief Nicholas Estavillo, a 38-year veteran who has overseen police deployment at the parade since 2002, will decide just before 9 a.m. today whether to set the balloons aloft. He said he was aware of how disappointed his grandchildren and millions of spectators would be if the balloons were grounded.
“It would distress me to no end, absolutely,” he said last night. “Putting that aside, we have to deal with the reality of the conditions and the concerns about safety.”
The Macy’s parade began in 1924, and the first balloons in the parade debuted in 1927. The parade was not held from 1942 to 1944 during World War II. In 1958, the balloons were filled with air and carried on trucks because of a national helium shortage. In 1971, gale-force winds and rain made it impossible to inflate any of the giant balloons.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
The Garfield balloon was prepared for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade today on West 81st Street.
These are among the new measures in place as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade marches for the 80th time Thursday, amid preparations worthy of a large-scale military operation.
But the precautions may not be enough to keep the giant balloons aloft.
A strong northeaster climbed up the East Coast today, driving a wall of rain and wind before it, with gusts expected at just about the speeds that parade organizers fear the most. As bleak as the weather are the memories: of 1997, when a Cat in the Hat balloon crashed into a lamppost, injuring four people and leaving one of them in a coma, and last year, when an M & M balloon sent the head of a street lamp crashing onto a woman using a wheelchair and onto her 11-year-old sister.
The poor weather and heightened oversight could ground some or all of the 12 big balloons — 2 fewer than last year — that are set to fly today. In the best case, they could be flown so low as to practically be floats. In the worst case, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg warned, the hapless helium-filled creatures could be pulled onto side streets and summarily deflated.
“First and foremost, we will make sure that we worry about safety before anything else,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said, “We’re very well prepared to guard against any eventuality, as far as the balloons are concerned.”
The mayor said that the parade has attractions beyond the giant balloons, including 36 other balloons and a float carrying Barry Manilow, the singer.
As the 12 giant balloons — including a new Pikachu and Flying Ace Snoopy, past parade favorites that have been redesigned for this year — were inflated yesterday afternoon and evening, on West 77th and 81st Streets and Central Park West around the American Museum of Natural History, some parade volunteers admitted to anxiety.
“If we can’t fly the balloons, sure we’ll be disappointed,” said Kathryn Kramer, 44, a Macy’s employee who lives in Yardley, Pa., who will be the flight captain for Flying Ace Snoopy. Ms. Kramer, who has handled balloons in every parade since 1985, described backup plans that could seem anticlimactic to spectators expecting towering cartoon figures: flight teams would simply “march and wave” to the crowds.
Current guidelines prohibit the giant balloons from being flown if sustained winds exceed 23 miles per hour or if gusts exceed 34 m.p.h. Michael E. Wyllie, the meteorologist in charge of the weather service’s forecasting office in Upton, N.Y., projected sustained winds of 20 to 25 m.p.h. and gusts of 30 to 35 m.p.h. for this morning.
“We’re probably going to be looking at limiting some of the larger balloons, and possibly not allowing them to be flown at all,” said Mr. Wyllie, who has participated in a series of conference calls with city officials about the parade.
A Macy’s spokeswoman, Elina Kazan, acknowledged that the outlook was grim.
“The forecast is quite disappointing,” she said yesterday, “but we are still hopeful and we are still inflating our balloons, because the call to fly or not fly the balloons will not be made until the morning.”
In the past, the decision to fly the balloons was made just before the 9 a.m. start of the parade, based on wind measurements taken at a weather station in Central Park. Along the parade route, workers used handheld anemometers — instruments that measure wind speed and direction — to make decisions about whether to fly the balloons at lower heights because of sudden gusts.
The wind measurements this year will be much more systematic. Anemometers will be mounted on poles along Central Park West at West 77th, 72nd and 59th Streets and along Broadway at West 51st, 46th, 42nd and 34th Streets. Each instrument will be monitored by a police officer and a representative of the Office of Emergency Management using a portable computer.
As each of the 12 big balloons approaches the intersections, the police officer will talk with the flight captain who walks ahead of the balloon, directing a flight team of 14 members and the 60 to 70 handlers who carry the balloon’s tethers. The officer will alert the captain about wind conditions, which can vary even from block to block, based on the height and layout of surrounding buildings. As in past years, a police officer will also march with each balloon.
After the 1997 accident, a 12-member panel appointed by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani recommended restrictions on the operation and size of the balloons and improved training of the volunteer balloon handlers.
Two months ago, a five-member task force appointed by Mr. Bloomberg to review last year’s accident found that the M & M balloon was traveling in an area significantly narrower than Macy’s guidelines allowed before its ropes got caught on a streetlight near Times Square.
The flight passageway or “envelope” — the width of the route free of obstruction — was supposed to be at least 62 feet from curb to curb, according to the report. In fact, however, the passageway as measured just north of the accident was 39 feet. The streetlight, which did not extend over the curb line, stood just outside this 39-foot passageway.
The task force directed that the maximum passageway be only 56 feet from now. Each balloon has its own guidelines for how high it should be flown, but the narrower envelope means that all balloons will be flown slightly lower than in the past. The task force also recommended that calculations of the envelope take into account obstructions along the route and not simply be measured from curb to curb.
Shannon D. Chandler, 45, a chaperone accompanying three students from Valley, Ala., who are part of the Macy’s Great American Marching Band, a contingent of 204 high school musicians from around the country, said he was nervous about what would happen to the balloons. “We’re worried we won’t get to see them,” he said.
The Police Department’s chief of patrol, Chief Nicholas Estavillo, a 38-year veteran who has overseen police deployment at the parade since 2002, will decide just before 9 a.m. today whether to set the balloons aloft. He said he was aware of how disappointed his grandchildren and millions of spectators would be if the balloons were grounded.
“It would distress me to no end, absolutely,” he said last night. “Putting that aside, we have to deal with the reality of the conditions and the concerns about safety.”
The Macy’s parade began in 1924, and the first balloons in the parade debuted in 1927. The parade was not held from 1942 to 1944 during World War II. In 1958, the balloons were filled with air and carried on trucks because of a national helium shortage. In 1971, gale-force winds and rain made it impossible to inflate any of the giant balloons.