Has Hurricane Sandy Cancelled Halloween?
For the first time in 39 years, New York City's massive Greenwich Village Halloween Parade has been cancelled, thanks to Hurricane Sandy. And now, some parents are wondering whether their communities will be able to hold Halloween at all.
Related: After Hurricane Sandy, what's it like in your neighborhood right now?
Even with the parade's marshals stranded in Brooklyn, the floats warehoused in New Jersey, and bridges and tunnels closed, the parade's artistic and producing director Jeanne Fleming told Yahoo! Shine that she was hoping the parade would go on.
Related: Does Halloween belong in school? One district says no
"We were the first major event in the city after 9/11," Fleming pointed out. "The parade is led by the dancing skeletons. What they tell us is is that in the face of death, in the face of destruction, in the face of trial, you have to know you're alive, so you have to dance. So our mission is, in the same sort of way, to show that no matter what happens to us we keep on living. We dance."
But, given that Hurricane Sandy flooded New York's subway system, shut down Wall Street, and caused billions of dollars worth of damage, Fleming acknowledged that Mayor Michael Bloomberg might decide that a Halloween parade would be a poor use of resources.
The New York City Parks Department closed all parks, playgrounds, greenmarkets, recreation centers, field houses, and beaches on Sunday night until further notice; official Halloween-related events at those venues have been cancelled. The Park Slope Business Improvement District in storm-ravaged Brooklyn, also decided to cancel their annual parade on Tuesday.
"NYPD and NYC Department of Sanitation are focusing on clean-up and safety efforts, post Hurricane Sandy," the group announced. "Therefore, the annual Park Slope Civic Council Halloween Parade will be cancelled this year. The parade WILL NOT be rescheduled."
Other areas hard-hit by Sandy cancelled their Halloween events long before the storm arrived. Several towns in central Pennsylvania decided not to hold their parades, just in case, and in Westport, Connecticut, officials even scrapped plans to hold an alternative event at Town Hall. The annual parade in Toms River, N.J., will be rescheduled once the fire company finishes assessing the storm damage, and officials in Newark, N.J., cancelled theirs on Friday.
"City officials cited that it was necessary to cancel the event now so that staff schedule to work the event will be available for citywide storm preparation," Dana Johnston, the city's community affairs officer, told the Newark Post.
With parades out of the question, some parents are wondering if it's even safe for kids to go trick-or-treating on Halloween night. The answer: It depends. Downed power lines and debris-strewed streets can make going door-to-door dangerous, and dark-colored costumes can make it hard to see kids outside.
While some towns are rescheduling Halloween, other communities are holding "trunk or treat" events in church and school parking lots, where costumed kids go from car-to-car instead of door-to-door. Malls in the Hudson Valley area are allowing kids to trick-or-treat indoors instead. And if the streets are clear but the weather is not, consider hosting a neighborhood house party, and have kids collect candy in each room.
Has the storm affected your Halloween plans?
