Rain drives off the parade by Claudia Sonea

For the late 57 years in a town called Escondido from San Diego County, California, there has always been a Christmas parade held just 2 weeks before Christmas. It is something that involves the whole town and people really look forward to it every year. Unfortunately, this year, for the first time, the parade will be canceled due rainy weather, according to the officials' statement on Saturday. On the Escondido Junior Chamber of Commerce's Web site a parade update post explains why it has been canceled in the last minute. Organizers said that rescheduling the parade for either of the two remaining weekends before Christmas was impractical for a number of reasons like the fact that notifying residents affected by street closures along the parade route would be difficult. Also, it would be quite difficult to get the permits needed from Caltrans to close state Route 78 or to get enough volunteers for traffic control on short notice. Some participants already had dismantled their floats, according to the organizers called The Jaycees. At all these reasons the concerns that many of the high school bands that had been scheduled to perform would not be able to attend because of previous commitments is added. All the decisions were taken after a meeting on Tuesday night where all the 25 members of the organization group talked and the Police Chief Jim Maher presented that the weather forecast show heavy rains that could led to traffic and safety problems. However, the rain ended before 9 am and the streets were empty and sad. Nevertheless, people should enjoy Christmas. Merry Christmas to you all and a happy New Year!

related story: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20071213-9999-1mi13epar.html

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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