Fiesta parades: Your guide to Battle of Flowers and Fiesta Flambeau
Why it matters: The Battle of Flowers Parade draws what feels like the whole city of San Antonio to a small section of downtown for Fiesta's final weekend.
Well, maybe not quite that many. But more than half a million people are expected to gather.
Here's what you need to know to navigate the Friday morning parade and the nighttime Fiesta Flambeau Parade on Saturday.
When to go
Friday, Battle of Flowers: The vanguard will kick things off at 9:55am, followed by a 10:30am parade start time.
Saturday, Flambeau: The vanguard gets going at 7:15pm, with the parade starting at 7:45pm.
If you go: Plan to show up well ahead of time for both events, and allow extra time for travel.
Taking a VIA bus or a ride-hailing service downtown are good options, as parking will be limited.
But here's a map of downtown parking options, for those who insist.
Plus: Parade streets will close beginning 6am Friday and 2:30pm Saturday.
They will reopen by 3pm Friday and midnight on Sunday.
Weather
Unfortunately, the forecast is not looking optimal. Rain could affect the parades, but forecasts are still uncertain.
Light drizzle is possible for Battle of Flowers, with higher rain chances later Friday and Saturday morning.
Odds are lower for rain during Fiesta Flambeau, according to KSAT.
It'll be a good idea to grab an umbrella with your Fiesta crown.
Route
This year's route is the same for both parades.
How it works: It will start near San Antonio College at North Main Avenue and East Locust Street.
The route then heads down Main into downtown.
It will pass by Madison Square Park, over the River Walk, past Alamo Plaza and then wind back over the San Antonio River again.
It ends at Santa Rosa and East Martin streets on the west side of downtown.
Tickets
While you don't necessarily need tickets to see the parades, having them guarantees that you'll get a good view and a spot on the bleachers.
Nearby bars
Fiesta experts know that the Bonham Exchange after the Battle of Flowers Parade is tradition, but it's not the only place to keep the party going.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
5 days ago
- Axios
Understanding what a 100-year flood really means
Trump administration officials called the July Fourth Guadalupe River flooding a "100-," "500-" or "1,000-year flood" during a Friday visit to Kerrville, prompting questions about the meaning of the term. The big picture: Such phrases shape how the public understands risk. But these events are not unprecedented — in fact, they can occur regularly. We break down what these terms mean. What is a 100-year flood? A 100-year flood is one that has a 1% chance of occurring in any year. It can happen more than once a century, and it's not related to the death toll of a flood, Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon tells Axios. A 1,000-year flood has a .01% chance. The designation is determined by how often, historically, a river is expected to reach a certain height. It's different for each river basin. What they're saying:"Really you should expect to see several of these in any given year just because there are lots of places," Nielsen-Gammon says. "The odds of flooding the following year aren't affected by whether or not it just flooded." Was the July Fourth flood a 100-year, 500-year or 1,000-year flood? Simply put, it's too early to tell. Is a 100-year flood different from a 100-year rainfall event? Yes — a rainfall event is determined by looking at how often high intensity rainfall occurs in an area. By the numbers: Kerr County received 10-12 inches of rainfall in just a few hours on July Fourth, per KSAT. That could make it a 1,000-year-rainfall event for the area, Nielsen-Gammon says. The Guadalupe reached an all-time high of 37.5 feet in Hunt, per KHOU. Is extreme flooding caused by climate change? While climate change is linked to more intense rainfall, it's uncertain whether that means more extreme flooding events, Nielsen-Gammon says. Still, some climate scientists say the data that 100-year floods are based on is outdated. "When you start to do the calculations for today's climate, you find that events that you might expect to happen once every hundred years might happen once every 20 years," Andrew Pershing, chief program officer at Climate Central, told Time. What types of floods has Central Texas experienced? On Memorial Day 1981 in Austin, 13 people died in a 100-year flood. The Blanco River flood in Wimberley over Memorial Day weekend in 2015 led to 13 deaths. It's considered a flood of record for the town. An October 1998 flood in and around San Antonio took 31 lives statewide. It's considered a 500-year flood. Could a catastrophic flood happen again? How officials communicate about floods can affect the public's response to risk, Lucy Atkinson, a University of Texas at Austin professor who has researched environmental communication, tells Axios. "If you think about a 1% chance of anything happening, we think, oh that's highly unlikely," Atkinson says. "So the question becomes — how do we get people to think ... that risk is very real."
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Yahoo
A Texas firefighter pleaded for an alert amid rising flood waters. It took an hour to go out
As floodwaters in Texas rose in the early morning of July 4, a local firefighter petitioned for an emergency alert to quickly be sent out, but local officials do not appear to have followed his request until about an hour later, according to leaked audio. The reported early-morning request raises questions about the timeline of events offered by local officials, who have said they had little advanced warning and no county system in place to alert residents about the floods, a disaster now responsible for at least 119 deaths, with even more still missing. According to audio obtained by KSAT, at 4:22am, a fireman with the Ingram Volunteer Fire Department reportedly called into emergency dispatch to warn that the Guadalupe River appeared to be rapidly overshooting its banks. Around that time, the river rose as much as 26 feet in 45 minutes, according to state officials. The firefighter urged officials to authorize a CodeRED alert, an emergency system that would send warning messages to the cellphones of people who had previously signed up for the service. 'The Guadalupe Schumacher sign is underwater on State Highway 39. Is there any way we can send a CodeRED out to our Hunt residents, asking them to find higher ground or stay home?' the firefighter asked, according to KSAT. A Kerr County Sheriff's Office dispatcher responded that the request would need approval from a supervisor. The earliest CodeRED alerts appear to have reached local residents about an hour later, according to multiple local media outlets, while some reported not getting their first CodeRED alert until after 10am. 'It should have been an immediate county-wide alert,' resident Louis Kocurek, who didn't get his first alert until after 10am, told Texas Public Radio. Questions have swirled over whether local, state, or federal officials could've done more to warn residents about the floods. Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha admonished reporters on Tuesday and said triggering alerts is 'not that easy.' 'There's a lot more to that [just pushing a button], and we've told you several times,' he added. He said the county's first priority is the ongoing search and rescue effort, but that analysis will be done to reconstruct the timeline for the emergency alerts. 'I believe those questions need to be answered to the family of the missed loved ones, to the public, you know, to the people that put me in this office,' he added on Wednesday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has also pushed back against those seeking a culprit for the alleged delays, saying during a press conference on Tuesday that seeking to assign blame at this phase is 'the word choice of losers.' The Independent has contacted the Kerrville Police Department for comment. During a press briefing on Wednesday, Kerrville Police Community Services Officer Chief Jonathan Lamb described officers racing into action the morning of the flood, as residents of Hunt woke to find themselves 'trapped on an island.' 'He saw dozens of people trapped on roofs. He saw people trapped in swift-moving water,' Lamb said of one officer, adding that the department evacuated over 100 homes and rescued more than 200 people. Others have alleged the collection of children's summer camps along the river, which relied in part on word of mouth from camps upriver about potential floods, should've been more alert to the risk of floods in the area. 'That scares the hell out of me,' Russel Honoré, the a Army general who coordinated relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina, told The Wall Street Journal. 'There have been floods there before.' State and local officials have blamed federal emergency managers for what they said were inadequate forecasts and warnings, while others have questioned if Trump administration's deep staffing cuts to the National Weather Service played a role. 'The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,' Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd told reporters last week. 'The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.' On July 3, a day before the floods, the National Weather Service issued a flood watch for portions of central Texas, warnings that escalated by that evening to a determination that flash flooding was likely across the region. At 1:14am, the service issued a 'life-threatening flash flooding' warning for Kerrville, where much of the devastation has been concentrated, triggering a separate cellphone alert system. That alert was issued more than three hours before the first reports of flooding came in, an agency spokesperson told The Independent. Emergency experts have lauded the efforts of federal forecasters. 'This was an exceptional service to come out first with the catastrophic flash flood warning and this shows the awareness of the meteorologists on shift at the NWS office,' Brian LaMarre, former meteorologist-in-charge of the NWS forecast office in Tampa, Florida, told The Associated Press. County officials have also come under scrutiny for not taking up a previously discussed proposal to install emergency weather sirens in the area around the river.
New York Post
05-07-2025
- New York Post
Young brothers swam for their lives to survive Texas flooding at Camp La Junta: ‘We had one choice'
Two brave brothers recalled the harrowing moment they woke up to flood waters surging through their camp cabin in Texas in the middle of the night — forcing them to make the split-second decision to swim for their lives. Piers and Ruffin Boyett were fast asleep at Camp La Junta in Hunt, Texas, when they awoke at 4 a.m. Friday as the fierce storm raged, causing the waters of Guadalupe River to swell to 26 feet in 45 minutes. 'The flood started getting bigger,' younger brother Piers recounted to local KSAT on Saturday. Advertisement 'We had bunk beds in our cabins and [the water] was going up to the top bunk and we had one choice — and we had to swim out of our cabin.' Brothers Piers (left) and Ruffin (right) Boyett were forced to flee their cabin at Camp La Junta — by swimming out. The brothers, both wearing Camp La Junta T-shirts, recalled a terrifying scene. Advertisement 'I had a first-hand view of the flood,' Ruffin said. 'The cabins were flooding and the walls, they broke down.' 'All of the campers in those cabins had to go up on the rafters and wait there until they could swim out,' Ruffin added. Ruffin told the outlet that he was the first person to wake up in his cabin, and that his counselor was asleep as the waters continued to rise. Advertisement 'He woke up like, 'What? We're flooding!'' Ruffin said of his counselor. Devastation along the banks of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas. REUTERS The boys were able to find safe quarters after swimming out — sheltering in 'cabins on hills' at their camp for 17 hours. 'No one died, we're thankful for that,' Ruffin said, patting his brother on the back. Advertisement 'On the way here, we saw some of the other camps destroyed. Obliterated,' the elder brother said in disbelief. Camp La Junta is one of many youth camps in Kerr County — which experienced unprecented flooding early Friday morning. Forty-three people have died — 28 adults and 15 children, officials said in a Saturday night update. Camp Mystic, a Christian summer retreat for girls, saw at least four campers killed and as many as 23 girls still unaccounted for, according to local officials.
