WINNIE, Texas — There will be no Texas Rice Festival again this year.
In 2019, the popular festival, which was set to celebrate its 50th anniversary, was canceled as Southeast Texas was recovering from devastating flooding from Tropical Storm Imelda. Festival organizers have now been forced to cancel the festival this year due to the ongoing surge in cases and hospitalizations from the coronavirus pandemic.
"The very nature of our festival is to bring our community closer together, which is the last thing we need to do at this time," Texas Rice Festival president Jeff Leger said. "The board put off the decision as long as possible, hoping the current health situation would be behind us, but the current spike in new COIVD-19 cases prevents us from putting on a safe festival."
The annual fall festival takes place at the Winnie-Stowell Park in Winnie the first weekend in October. The goal is to celebrate the area's rice harvest, but the festival has turned into the community's biggest fundraiser.
"The TRF will be back, better and stronger, but for now we feel the health and well being of our community and state will be better served by working hard to social distance and adhere to all government and CDC guidelines to put this virus outbreak to rest," Leger said.
Texas is seeing a record surge in new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. On July 7, Texas recorded 10,028 new cases in a single day. That's the highest number reported since the pandemic began. Texas has seen nine consecutive days of new highs at hospitals across the state with 9,286 hospitalized on July 7.
News of the Rice Festival cancellation followed news that the Texas State Fair was also being canceled due to concerns over COVID-19. It's the first time the fair, the largest in the U.S., has been cancelled since WWII.
The 2020 cancellation of the Texas Rice Festival is the latest in a string of setbacks for organizers, one of the most popular in Southeast Texas. In February 2019, the Lilton Sonnier Arena project at Winnie-Stowell Park collapsed during construction.
Officials said a come along used to hold the steel structure up during construction failed, Chambers County fire marshal Ryan Holzaepfel told 12News last July. Organizers were racing to have the project complete by the 2019 festival, but Tropical Storm Imelda made landfall days before the start of the festival.
Winnie and Chambers County was one of the hardest hit areas during Imelda. At least 800 homes took on water -- some with more than a foot of water. Many families were just getting settled in their homes after being flooded by Harvey in 2017.
"We moved back into this house on January 31 of (2019), it took that long," Janie Wood told 12News following Imelda in September. "I cried, and I might cry right now. But I'm trying not to. It's all going to be okay. Lord, please come over me."
