The coronavirus pandemic has canceled countless auto shows and even outdoor events like the Woodward Dream Cruise. However, car culture lives on in smaller events across the country.
That brings us to the story of a car show in California hosted by the Loma Linda University Church. The event took place over the weekend to benefit a homeless charity and organizers only expected about two dozen cars to show up.
However, the event far exceeded expectations as NBC Los Angeles says the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department estimates 3,000 to 4,000 people turned out for the event. This was far more than originally intended and people didn’t stay in their cars as planned.
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Instead, thousands of people milled about and crammed vehicles into the parking garage where the event was being hosted. Things got so bad that officials declared the car show a “potential [corona]virus super-spreader event.”
To make matters worse, there was so much traffic that Sheriff’s Deputy Olivia Bozek told the station “We got some calls from some people who were trying to get to the hospital for medical services, and they weren’t able to get there because there was such congestion and traffic gridlock.”
The car show was eventually shut down by authorities and police reportedly issued multiple traffic citations. The church issued a statement apologizing for “complicating the work of the hospital, of campus security, of our county sheriff’s department, and the life of our neighbors.”
They went on to say “We failed to anticipate that the event would grow so far beyond what we had planned. We are still processing the details to better understand how this happened so that something like this does not ever occur again.”