UPDATE, 11:54 a.m.:

The City of Eureka issued the following statement to its social media channels: 

We want to offer our sincere apologies to our community for the fireworks happening before the advertised time shared for the 250th Celebration. 

Our published schedule listed the fireworks beginning at 10 p.m., as they have historically in previous years. However, there was an oversight in our contract with the pyrotechnics company, and the listed start time was approximately 9:30 PM. Unfortunately, we did not recognize this issue, and we failed to update the contract. We’ve reviewed this process and will ensure it doesn’t happen again. 

We know many people planned their evening around the posted time, and we understand the disappointment of those who missed all or part of the fireworks display because of our error. We sincerely regret that experience.  

While thousands of people joined us throughout the day to celebrate the 250th anniversary and countless aspects of the event went exactly as planned, that does not lessen the importance of getting the details right. The fireworks display was conducted safely and successfully, but it was not presented at the time we told our community to expect it.  

We appreciate everyone’s understanding and patience, and we are committed to improving our processes so this does not happen again. Thank you to everyone who came together to make the celebration such a memorable day for our community.

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Original post:

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Eureka’s annual Fourth of July fireworks display kicked off about half an hour ahead of schedule on Saturday, causing some families to miss the show entirely. A number of those folks are, shall we say, disappointed.

“Oh, they’re pissed off,” Mayor Kim Bergel said when reached by phone this morning. “That’s not a mayoral term but that’s how they feel.”

Evidence of their discontent has been sprinkled across social media.

“Was very disappointing to arrive on time for 10:00 and be told the show had started early and was over!” one Facebook commenter remarked.

Another was even more distraught. “A highlight in life taken away,” she lamented, adding a frowny-face emoji to emphasize the point. “Try it again. Set a date and a time and do it again (soon). We deserve our fireworks show!!!”

Bergel attributed the premature ignition to a miscommunication among staff and said, “The City is sincerely, sincerely sorry for that.” 

The mayor missed the show, too. She said she’d arranged to meet a friend outside the Carson Mansion at 10 p.m. and was walking in that direction when, around 9:30, she started hearing the explosions.

“I was like, ‘No way,’” she said. “By the time I got to the Ingomar Club, they were done.”

Another Facebooker said their family traveled six hours to see the fireworks, adding, “The children are leaving very disappointed because they didn’t get to see anything.”

Describing the mishap as “a huge deal,” Bergel said she’s been reading all of the peeved comments. 

“I have seen so many comments, [including] people calling for people to be fired,” she said. “Here’s the thing: People make mistakes. We all make ‘em. We’re going do what we can to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future, but we can’t change what happened. …Just know that we are sorry.”

The city plans to release a statement further addressing the situation later today on social media. We’ll update this post when it gets published.