Jul 3, 2009 2:19 pm US/Eastern
Authorities Warn Against Rooftop Fireworks Parties
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
-
-
For nearly a decade, New York City's fireworks display has been synonymous with the East River on the Fourth of July, but this year the Hudson River plays host. (File)
CBS
For nearly a decade, New York City's fireworks display has been synonymous with the East River on the Fourth of July, but this year the Hudson River plays host. New Jersey residents looking forward to watching the spectacle from their rooftops are having their plans hampered by safety regulations.
Plenty of New Jerseyans are thrilled to finally have a front row seat for the fireworks show, including Nicole Stiller, who lives along the river in Hoboken.
"I was hoping to have everybody to come up on the roof, but I don't think that's going to happen," she told CBS 2.
She's right. Her apartment building, Maxwell Place, has restricted each tenant to two guests a piece for their rooftop terrace. And while rooftops, porches, balconies and fire escapes may all seem to be the perfect perches for a bird's eye view of the fireworks, police say rooftops and fire escapes are completely off limits for parties because the danger of collapsing by the weight of a crowd.
So how do authorities expect to keep all those spectators safe and keep them off rooftops? Both cities plan to have their entire police force on hand as well as help from the state, county and Port Authority.
They'll even have an eye in the sky that will be taking pictures and downloading them to a command center in Weehawken where authorities will be dispatched.
"It's a great thing, it's an exciting thing, and it's wonderful that we're going to have all these people here, but we're going to have to take a number of preparations both in terms of law enforcement and public safety to make sure that we have not only a fun event, but a safe event," said Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
2009 Celebrity Deaths, July-Dec.
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
