meanwhile, about 3,000 miles east of los angeles, new york city is preparing for its first major event since the attacks in paris. rehearsals for the macy s thanksgiving day parade are under way. the mayor and police commissioner say there s no specific threat to new york city, but parade goers should still be on high alert. chris is live at the preparations. chris, they say come in anyway, but be on high alert. has this dampened the mood for this annual tradition? steve, i ll let you judge for yourself. take a look at this crowd. i mean, this is a very thick crowd that s gathering right now on 77th street on new york s upper west side. people are walking 15 deep as what s going on here is they re inflating the 17 balloons that will be in the macy s thanksgiving day parade tomorrow morning. that s been going on all afternoon here. and as the afternoon has gone on, more and more people have
police, army cid and a host of other law enforcement professionals again responding to reports that shots fired at approximately 4:16 p.m. on wednesday. numerous reports of gunfire and wounded personnel were received and it continued at various locations which contributed to the chaos and confusion associated with the initial reports. the alleged shooter, specialist ivan lopez, initially opened fire with a smith & wesson semiautomatic handgun near the intersection of 77th street. the entrier crime scene encompasses an almost two city block area. we have credible information that he was involved in a verbal altercation with soldiers from his unit just frprior to him allegedly opening fire. the subject then proceeded to travel to two other nearby buildings, entering those locations and opening fire.
all the high winds down there. rick reichmuth is standing by at the starting gate and to see exactly what the conditions are, what speed will the wind have to blow before those things are grounded? reporter: if it s a sustained wind at 23 miles an hour, and i guarantee you we re nowhere near that, that s good. if gusting over 34 miles an hour, that causes the problems. at times the winds gets gusty. you can see those balloons flopping in the air. that gives you an idea of some of the wind that we re seeing here. it s just gusting, coming in and out. you can also see that. 77th street, that s all of those balloons that we re talking about. those are the high flying balloons generally. they filled them up yesterday, this big event they do the day before the parade and strap them down underneath the nets and hopefully soon let them go. there is meteorologists here working with the national weather service working with the nypd. i can tell you, it does not seem that bad here. i m hopeful
talking to him helping him fly down the parade route. brand-new sponge bob but sponge bob wanted to put on a santa hat but it is a little big. he is holding on to make sure it doesn t fly off. toothless is a nice fairy dragon. he s at the end of 77th street. dark as night. i can t wait for the sun to come up so everyone can see this enormous dragon. over on 81st street, all of those people who are nuts about the most recent sensation in cartoons from cartoon network, adventure time with ben and jake will be in the parade this year. we re all so excited about that. and five new floats. sea world, a sea of surprises. beautiful sculpted sea turtles, giant sea turtles and baby sea turtles and
macy s thanksgiving day parade to see, to watch at home. here in new york, macy s has been putting on the biggest thanksgiving show in the country for the past 86 years, as a matter of fact. rick, you ever a front row, lucky guy. he s been there for 50 of those years. from the upper west side, hey, rick. hey there. it s kind of true. this is the best seat, absolutely. everything gets condensed into one small spot right where the parade gets going. so you see all of the balloons back here on 77th street. they have them lined up on two different streets here. all the balloons, they blow them up yesterday. we have video from yesterday. they turned that into a big event. 500,000 people come near these couple of blocks. i still live in these couple of blocks. you end up with 500,000 people right here coming to see this. it s crazy. a mad house. we ve got a chopper overhead from wnyw. you can see the shots coming right here.