Sponsors of the annual July Fourth fireworks display have no plans to move the event from Murphy Park even after a flock of startled egrets sparked a power outage when they crashed into some transformers.
Posts soon flooded social media that night with some residents expressing outrage and calling for a new venue next year so the federally protected birds won’t face injury or death.
Some suggested moving the fireworks to a different location such as Memorial Field or the Williamson County Expo Center.
The American Legion Graham D. Luhn Post 39 hosts the display, and officials there said the egrets take flight every year.
“The Legion has no intention of moving the fireworks anywhere,” said Scott Dean, Post 39 commander. “We’ve been doing them there since we took over. They have been going on there. I don’t know of any other place they’ve ever done them.”
Officials said so far they have not found any egrets that were electrocuted from flying into electrical equipment after the so-called “cow birds” took flight in fear from the island in Murphy Park during the fireworks show.
The resulting loss of power left residents in central and north Taylor in the dark, some from shortly after sunset to the early morning hours of July 5.
Councilman Robert Garcia said city officials are looking into the episode.
He released a statement apologizing for the incident and offered his sympathy to anyone affected by seeing the birds and sparking wires. He added a follow-up discussion is being held.
“I would like you to know that a postevent meeting will take place with all entities involved to discuss the situation and solution,” he said. “Please understand we all take this very seriously.”
Dean said the egrets often have been alarmed by the display.
“We do the fireworks show every year. When we start popping them off, the egrets freak out and fly off,” he said. “It happens every year without fail since they started nesting there 15 to 20 years ago.” According to
According to the Taylor Police Department, about 9:15 p.m. Monday, egrets began flying away from the city park and hit four power transformers, which caused a loss of power from Fourth Street to Circleville.
Dean said when the fireworks began, the birds took to the air and followed the lead egret, with some subsequently hitting the power lines.
“I don’t know how many of them died because they never found a body,” he said. “We went looking. The city went looking. Oncor (Electric Delivery) went looking. Not a single bird was found.”
Two egrets discovered on Lake Drive had been run over, but showed no signs of burns.
“We do not know at this time the number of egrets involved or if they survived the encounter,” city staff said in a statement Tuesday.
Some residents, however, said they did find dead birds.
A social-media post by Eric Braden said the explosion of the transformer scared his children, who were walking to the park from downtown.
“When I made my way to them in the traffic, they were nursing a cattle egret as it died,” the post said. “We buried it in my front yard. We saw three more dead egrets on the fiveminute drive home.”
According to Dean, the fireworks were once fired from the island itself until the egrets began nesting there. The display is launched from the land bridge by the water-treatment facility, about 400 yards from the island.
Because federal law now protects the egrets, the island is no longer used to launch the fireworks.
