BEST SPOTS TO WATCH FIREWORKS
His skill keeps us safe
The FDNY inspector in charge of the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks spectacular knows he has to get it right the first time.
Joe Meyers, chief inspector of the FDNY’s explosives unit, has been with the department for seven years and has done similar work in the private sector for two decades. He takes over for Jim Lauer, 71, who retired after 18 years’ overseeing the nation’s biggest birthday celebration.
“I worked closely with the old chief,” Meyers, 56, told the Daily News. “We are going to do what we have to do because we don’t get a second chance to make sure it’s 100% safe.”
Meyers and his FDNY team have been carefully checking and protecting the 60,000 live shells before they are launched Tuesday night from five barges in the East River.
Members of the FDNY have the fireworks under close watch the second they are trucked from California into New York City.
“We escort all the explosives," Meyers said. “We are with that truck.”
“Fireworks are one of the top targets for terrorism,” he added.
The 25-minute patriotic pyrotechnic extravaganza is planned by several city agencies including the FDNY, the NYPD and the Department of Transportation.
Even the barges are inspected by NYPD scuba divers, to make sure no one has placed explosives underneath.
Before the Macy’s fireworks show, the FDNY explosives unit looks for things like loose powder, faulty wiring or other potential hazards.
“People don’t realize how much work goes into this,” said Meyers, noting that Macy’s officials typically “weed out” the faulty fireworks before they arrive in New York.
Still, some shells must occasionally be yanked in middle of the televised show.
“We have stopped the queue” of fireworks being launched, Meyers said. “So it doesn’t become an injury or a disaster.”
During each Macy’s show, the FDNY places five staffers from the explosives unit on each of the barges.
Each group has a spotter, who keeps lookout for any debris from the fireworks that may have gone askew, as well as party boats entering the restricted “exclusion zone.” Television camera teams and the boats must be at least 1,000 feet away from the barges.
For Meyers, who lives upstate, overseeing the explosives unit requires a mix of memory and skill.
“Explosives are 50% science and 50% experience,” he said. “Everything is a variable.”
Before he joined the FDNY, Meyers spent years working at the World Trade Center site, making sure the excavation around the fallen towers went off without a hitch.
“We had to blast the rock 80 feet down from street level,” he recalled. “It was very intricate blasting.
“I was at the site 14 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. “We had to get the job finished.”