ESCANABA — The city of Escanaba has decided to postpone its annual fireworks display for a second time because of the risk of bad weather. The show scheduled for Saturday, July 12 at Ludington Park will not take place. The fireworks display was originally going to be held on Saturday, July 5. Those plans ended when rain and thunderstorms moved through the area.

“The city of Escanaba Recreation Department and Great Lakes Fireworks have made the difficult decision to cancel fireworks for this Saturday due to the weather forecast. Great Lakes Fireworks requires three hours of travel time and six hours of set up time with no rain. In looking at the forecast, it states rain and thunderstorms in the morning, afternoon and evening,” said Escanaba Recreation Director Kim Peterson. “This has been a very hard decision to cancel as a lot of work goes into planning an event such as this which began last fall. We hope the community understands that we cannot control the weather and will be looking at another date in the future.

A similar scenario played out Wednesday. The city of Manistique had also originally planned its fireworks display for July 5. That was postponed due to bad weather a moved to July 12. On Wednesday, Manistique officials and the company hired to put on the show — Great Lakes Fireworks — also decided to postpose the July 12 show. Manistique is now trying to schedule for some event this season that has a large outdoor gathering.

Great Lakes Fireworks is also staging Escanaba’s show.

Peterson stated the city is fortunate to have a company submit a proposal for fireworks in the City of Escanaba as we had several years of sending out bids with only Great Lakes Fireworks responding.

She said a $5 million insurance policy is obtained and the pyrotechnic operators licensing is secured per Michigan Fireworks Regulation by Great Lakes Fireworks.