Mayor's Emergency Covers Only Sandwiches

Mayor Milos Pellegrini declared a state of emergency on Saturday, covering the parade committee's catering and nothing else. The Founders' Day march had been rerouted after the Third Haul Tunnel collapsed. The committee declined to cancel it. Instead, 1,400 marchers walked a looped service corridor beneath Ring Market for nine hours, passing the same pressure door 212 times.

The order releases 600 kilos of reserve protein, two bakery ovens and the night shift of the Deep Kitchen to the committee. Nothing else in the town is covered. The tunnel remains closed, and the ore trams still run on the old schedule.

Pellegrini has marshalled the parade for 41 years. He walked the whole loop in the front rank, then signed the order at the pressure door on lap 190, using the door as a desk.

"A parade is a route," said committee chair Nadia Tamatea. "We kept the route. It is merely shorter and comes back. Frankly, that is how most of our routes work."

Hedda Obradovic, 83, who has watched the march from the same bench in the main gallery since childhood, said the loop never reached the gallery.

"I waited four hours," she said. "They went past me once, at the start. Then they went past a wall."

The sandwiches were served on lap 100. Obradovic did not get one. She was told the emergency did not extend to spectators.