Mishap Causes San Diego July 4th Fireworks Show To Be Over In Seconds
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) - If you live in New York, you were treated to an amazing Macy's fireworks display on the Fourth of July. Music, flags and colorful explosions illuminated the night sky over the Hudson.
If you live in San Diego, however, you weren't as lucky.
The fireworks show in the Port of San Diego was finished seconds after it started. Really, blink and you probably missed it.
Video from the scene showed a gigantic 28-second blast, with rockets and bombs bursting in a random pattern. Then, nothing.
"It looked like a planet coming," one spectator said, according to CBSLosAngeles.com. A civilian dispatcher at the San Diego Coast Guard station said, "It looked like the finale … you know, right at the end they shoot off everything."
The company that produced Wednesday night's fireworks show in San Diego said it's trying to find out why the tens of thousands of fireworks that had been set up on four barges and a pier all went off at once, instead of being launched over the course of 20 minutes.
August Santore, a part-owner of the company, says a glitch or virus in the computer firing system caused all of the fireworks to go off with one command, minutes before the show had been scheduled to start.
He says the precautions that were in place helped keep anyone from being injured.
Santore says the company feels "terrible'' about the mishap, which was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people. The company produced hundreds of holiday shows across the country last night.
Online video shows multiple explosions in the shape of light bulbs flaring up from barges in the bay. They began to fizzle and sputter in a matter of seconds.
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