By David E. Hubler
Contributor, EDM Digest
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and other officials announced details of Thursday’s victory parade for the hometown Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
More than two million people are expected to attend the celebration, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Following the team’s first Super Bowl win on Sunday, Eagles fans took to the streets of Philadelphia to celebrate.
At least a dozen people may have been injured when the awning they had climbed onto outside Philadelphia’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel collapsed.
Videos posted to social media showed fans scaling the vinyl and metal blue awning and then jumping off. Eventually, when a number of people climbed onto the structure at the same time, it folded in on itself.
Elsewhere around Center City, some windows broken and traffic signals were torn out of the ground, NBC Channel 10 reported. A handful of fans vandalized stores and took down street poles.
Uniform and plainclothes officers will patrol the crowds to prevent disturbances, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross announced. Bicycle and mounted police as well as tactical air support will also be visible during the event, NBC Channel 10 said.
In addition, the police department’s homeland security unit is visiting bars along the parade route. The officers are asking bar owners and employees to serve drinks in plastic cups to prevent potential hazards from thrown bottles and broken glass.
The city’s Office of Emergency Management plans to send updates via text message to residents who sign up by texting ReadyEagles to 888777.
All district schools and administrative offices will be closed for the day.
“The excitement of the Eagles’ first Super Bowl victory is a once in a lifetime event,” Schools Superintendent William R. Hite, said Monday. “For this reason we have decided to give our students, teachers and their families the chance to witness history.”
Parade organizers said the motorcade, which will feature open-air vehicles for the players and team officials, will travel in the center of the roadway except when there is a median. Barricades will help with crowd control, NBC Channel 10 said.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s (SEPTA) Broad Street and Market-Frankford lines will be free for people going to and from the Eagles parade.
The parade will begin at 10:45 a.m. on Thursday when Eagles players and coaches in motorized vehicles will leave Lincoln Financial Field. The parade will to run north on Broad Street, around City Hall, and up the Parkway, where all the traffic lights will be green and the entire parade route will be barricaded. Fourteen Jumbotron TV screens will line the street from Eakins Oval to City Hall.
The parade will end at the iconic Philadelphia Art Museum where a celebration will take place. The museum gained international fame when actor Sylvester Stallone, as Rocky Balboa, raced up the museum steps while training for his championship prize fight.
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