City Recaps the 2018 Rose Parade, Rose Bowl Game Statistics: 14,000 No Parking Signs, 1,828 Calls to Police, and 112 Workers Collect 94 Tons of Trash

With the successful conclusion of the 129th Rose Parade and 104th Rose Bowl Game – enjoyed by hundreds of thousands locally and millions of people around the world this week on Monday – the City has released a general summary of municipal services, responses and related activities that helped Pasadena be America’s New Year’s Day Celebration Destination.

The following highlighted statistics primarily pertain to the 48-hour period from the morning of New Year’s Eve day, Dec. 31, 2017, until about 11:59 p.m. January 1, 2018, unless otherwise noted.

Additional planning, site visits, inspections, meetings and other pre-event field work was also accomplished by many of the City’s 16 departments and 2,000-plus employees prior to the events. Detailed memos from departments are included in this week’s City Manager Newsletter, online at https://ww5.cityofpasadena.net/city-manager/.

“Much of what the City does to ensure that the annual Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game events happen in such a flawless manner goes on behind the scenes. These are world-renowned events that most cities the size of Pasadena would never dream of doing once, yet our City employees work year after year to make these great events happen for all the world to enjoy,” City Manager Steve Mermell said. “I am proud of each and every one of our employees for their contributions.”

During the two-day period, the Pasadena Police Department reported receiving 1,828 calls into its Dispatch Center. Of those calls, 771 resulted in patrol units responding as a “call for service.” Many of the remaining calls were either duplicates or information-only from people telling police officials the “See Something, Say Something” public information campaign motivated them to call.

Pasadena Police made nine arrests during the enforcement period. Three alcohol-related misdemeanors and one arrest on an outstanding warrant occurred on the parade route while five additional misdemeanor arrests occurred at the game, attended by more than 92,000 people. The 10 p.m. New Year’s Eve closure and barricade deployment for the 5½-mile parade route was successful, with no public safety problems reported.

The Pasadena Fire Department reported treating 38 people at the parade or at related events, including 18 transported to the hospital and 20 who were treated on scene and released. The Red Cross had about 130 people stop at their aid stations for minor assistance. At the football game, nearly 500 medical contacts were made with the public by firefighters and paramedics, including 53 persons needing medical aid, with 18 taken to the hospital and 35 treated and released on scene.

The Pasadena Public Health Department’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program staff worked closely with its health counterparts from the federal, state and county levels to monitor for health risks during the events; none were reported. The Department also inspected and permitted about 120 food vendors for the parade, football game and pre- and post-parade events. The Health Department’s “unlicensed vendor” detail deployed with police and found only one unlicensed food vendor who was cited.

Crews from the Public Works Department were also out in force. The Department assisted law enforcement by providing the physical barricades at 21 dedicated cross streets and protective water barriers for an additional 59 streets along the parade route. In all, the Public Works Department deployed about 6,500 barricades throughout the City; installed 14,500 temporary No Parking signs; placed more than 100 catch basin covers to prevent storm drain contamination; and painted about 10 miles of blue honor lines and six miles of the pink float-driver center route line.

The Public Works Department had 112 workers using eight dump trucks, eight skip loader/backhoes, eight street sweepers and 10 pick-up trucks to collect about 94 tons of trash from the parade, post-parade and outside areas of the Rose Bowl Stadium—a 25 percent increase over 2017. More than 20 tons of clean cardboard and more than 8,500 beverage containers were recycled.

In the days leading up to the events, Public Works also removed 37 traffic signals poles, masts or street lights; temporarily installed 17 others such devices; and placed about 1,500 temporary traffic signs, orange cones and traffic lane delineators. Crews will now spend several more days putting it all back together for normal traffic flows throughout town.

GT-5, the City’s new natural gas-fired turbine generator at the Glenarm Power Facility operated by Pasadena Water and Power, was in use for about 34 hours, from noon on Dec. 31 to 10 p.m. Jan. 1, to help ensure all local electric needs were efficiently met.

Crews from the City’s departments of Transportation, Information Technology and Water & Power were also on scene to assist in numerous support roles at various locations, monitoring everything from traffic flows and data/Internet needs to plumbing, security cameras and stadium lights.

Regarding public information, more than 250,000 impressions of original Tweets and posts on Facebook and Instagram were generated during the two-day period from the City’s social media platforms to complement the social media event information by the Tournament of Roses Association, www.tournamentofroses.com, the Rose Bowl Stadium, www.rosebowlstadium.com, and the Pasadena Convention and Visitors Bureau, www.visitpasadena.com. Extensive media outreach was completed with social media postings; news releases; live press conferences; televised messages on KPAS, the City’s government TV channel; and one-on-one interviews to give public safety information to the hundreds of news reporters in town covering the events.

The City’s annual public safety press conference was attended by about 40 credentialed press representatives from local and regional TV, radio, print and online news outlets. The entire event was broadcast live on KPAS, streamed live online by Pasadena Media, www.pasadenamedia.org, to news media across the country, including Oklahoma and Georgia, and for the first time featured an American Sign Language interpreter.

The public safety press conference repeated daily on KPAS Dec. 21-29. The 30-minute video also generated nearly 65,000 impressions on Facebook from Dec. 21 to Dec. 29. Additional event information and safety announcements, including maps on early route closures, were posted on the City’s website and mailed in December to every Pasadena residential and business address, more than 70,000 addresses, via the City’s official newsletter, Pasadena in Focus.

Pasadena’s police and fire departments were assisted in providing comprehensive public safety protection by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; U.S. Department of Homeland Security; U.S. Secret Service; the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms; U.S. Customs; the California National Guard; U.S. Coast Guard; California Highway Patrol; Los Angeles Port Police; the Glendale Police Department and many other police departments within the greater law enforcement community of Southern California.

Fire departments and other emergency services agencies that provided assistance include the Los Angeles City and County fire departments; the Glendale, Burbank, Santa Monica, San Gabriel, San Marino Fire, South Pasadena and Monrovia fire departments; Pasadena Fire Emergency Medical Services Reserves (EMSR); the American Red Cross; Homeland Security’s Medic Alert Center and the California State Office of Emergency Services (OES).

Stay connected to the City of Pasadena! Visit the City of Pasadena online at  www.cityofpasadena.net; follow the city on Twitter @PasadenaGov, www.twitter.com/pasadenagov, and like the City on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cityofpasadena. Or call the Citizen Service Center, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, at (626) 744-7311.