Thanks For Coming!
Worst fireworks show in America shows no staying power: Inside the greatpremature ignition
Houston's Freedom Over Texas celebration may have its trove of celebrity musical guests that draws more than 100,000 people year after year . . . But no American city partied like San Diego this Fourth of July after a technical glitch reduced a planned 18-minute fireworks display to a mere 15 seconds.
Families gathered for San Diego's Big Bay Boom spectacular were taken aback Wednesday night as three massive fireballs lit up the Southern California sky minutes before the show's expected 9 p.m. start time.
Coast Guard officials called the mishap a "premature ignition," setting off a shockwave of jokes across the Internet.
"I've never seen so many fireworks go off at one time," Rich Dann, a search-and-rescue controller with the Coast Guard, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "I saw what looked like a fireworks finale. It lasted a minute or two and then it was over." Take away about 105 seconds from that estimate and you have the real length of the show.
The newspaper also noted that Coast Guard officials called the mishap a "premature ignition," setting off a shockwave of jokes across the Internet.
Several hours after the incident, port authorities released a statement claiming that test signals sent to the water-bound barges used to launch the pyrotechnics were in working order earlier in the day. The technical error is currently under examination by Garden State Fireworks — the New Jersey company responsible for the Big Bay Boom event which orchestrated past displays for the Atlanta Olympics and the Statue of Liberty centennial.
