Parade prep continues with eye on weather

The Daily American Republic will host an Independence Day parade at 9 a.m. July 4th, weather allowing. Updates will be shared Wednesday evening in coordination with Butler County Emergency Management Agency and the city of Poplar Bluff.

The Daily American Republic will once again host this year’s July 4th parade. We’re excited. We’ve been planning for weeks. We’ve got trophies. We’ve got floats. We’ve got music. And we’ve got a lot of people who love America and are ready to share their patriotic spirit.

But will we have the weather?

That’s the question the DAR is weighing now, in conjunction with the Butler County Emergency Management Agency and officials from the city of Poplar Bluff.

We plan to announce this early Wednesday evening via our website and social media.

We’re all familiar with the saying, “If you don’t like the weather in Southeast Missouri, wait five minutes.”

But for planning of this magnitude, we can’t leave the decision of whether or not to proceed that late.

The National Weather Service predicts a chance of showers and thunderstorms before 1 p.m. Thursday, as of their Tuesday forecast.

We plan to check that forecast again Wednesday. We will follow the advice of EMA and the city in making a decision on whether or not to cancel the parade.

We’ve already spent the early part of this week discussing these options.

We can’t postpone and don’t want to wait until the last minute to decide. These are options and decisions that the DAR, city and EMA have already weighed.

We can’t postpone because parades require a large amount of work from police and street department workers.

For those same workers — and for those who are investing time in preparing floats for the parade— we also don’t want to wait until Thursday morning to cancel, if that is what’s needed.

We also know parade morning means an early start for everyone who is participating. We don’t want folks to have arrived at the venue and then have to leave.

This leaves us making the decision Wednesday evening.

Now, if we do decide to proceed, we will watch the weather closely, along with county and city officials, in case anything changes at that point.

The current plans are:

The parade lineup will take place from 6:30-8:30 a.m. at Sky High Jump Park, 2801 Cheshire Blvd. DAR staff will be on hand to direct traffic.

— Enter Cheshire Boulevard from Highway 53. Line-up order is on a first come basis.

— All floats/groups/vehicles should be together before entering the lineup. Please stage in Whiteley Park if you are waiting on additional people or vehicles.

— Members of the Poplar Bluff High School band will meet in the parking lot behind McDonald’s.

— All drivers should be in their vehicles and ready to leave at 8:30 a.m.

— Floats will exit onto Cheshire Boulevard traveling south, turning left onto Highway 142.

If we cancel:

We can still share the work all of our participants have done to prepare for the parade.

Participants are invited to share photos of their floats, which will post to the DAR Facebook page for voting. First, second and third place prize packages will be awarded based on the entries that receive the most likes.