Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade 2019: Balloons fly, just lower than usual

NEW YORK - The beloved balloons flew, if lower than usual, as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade rolled on after an anxious weather watch Thursday.

Wind had threatened to ground the giant inflated characters. But officials announced less than an hour before Thursday’s start time that the balloons could fly, if in a down-to-Earth way.

As the parade continued — even while city emergency officials sent out a public alert about wind gusts — handlers struggled with some giant balloons and pulled them close to the ground. Meanwhile, winds did keep giant balloons out of Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

Astronaut Snoopy, a new version of a longtime parade favorite, was among the giant inflated characters leading the lineup.

Joanna Mammen and her family came from Bradford County in northern Pennsylvania to revisit the parade she attended every year — rain, shine or wind — as a girl growing up in the Bronx.

“My favorite float, as a kid, was Santa Claus,” said Mammen, 69. “Most of the other floats from that time, the kids these days wouldn’t even recognize. But it’s a beautiful tradition, to come out and experience the crowd.”

It was a first-time experience for her husband, Bill. And for him, it was all about sharing the fun the couple’s son, Jason, and 2-year-old grandson, Lincoln.

“Thanksgiving is not just about the people I love. It is the people I love,” he said.

Spectators lined up a half-dozen deep along the route on a breezy but beautiful fall day, with leaves and confetti swirling in the wind.

Parade officials and the New York Police Department had been keeping an eye on wind gauges along the 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) parade route that snakes through Manhattan.

During the middle of the parade, the wind was 13 mph (21 kph) with gusts up to 32 mph (51 kph), according to the National Weather Service.

City rules require balloons to be grounded if sustained winds exceed 23 mph (37 kph) and gusts exceed 34 mph (55 kph). The balloons have been grounded only once for weather-related reasons, in 1971.

On Thursday, in a windy spot near the start of the 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) route, a Nutcracker balloon knocked into a handler, who fell down but then continued along. A Grinch balloon touched some trees as it passed a corner, drawing an “ooh!” from the crowd.

To parade-goer Kate O’Connor, the wind was “scary, especially around the corners — they’re like wind tunnels.”

The parade, one of the city’s most popular events, features about 8,000 marchers, two dozen floats and marching bands, ending with an appearance from Santa Claus.

The character balloons can go as high as 55 feet (16 meters) off the ground and as low as 10 feet (3 meters).

The rules requiring them to be grounded in high-wind conditions came after wind blew a “Cat in the Hat” balloon into a lamppost near Central Park in 1997, critically injuring a woman.

In 2005, eight years after the “Cat and the Hat” went off course, an M&M’s balloon smacked into a lamppost in Times Square, causing cuts and bruises to a woman in a wheelchair and her 11-year-old sister.

In 2017, a gust on an otherwise calm day sent a smaller balloon into a tree branch. That one popped and fell harmlessly onto the crowd.