I took my family down to the rooftop viewing area at the east end of Navy Pier tonight and had a perfect view of the fireworks. The crowd moved easily on the way out, until the throngs got near the entrance on the west end and came to a dead halt. Thousands of people, lots of kids, wondering what could be going on.

I figured it was a medical emergency or some kind of crime scene. Certainly in Chicago, which regularly handles huge Grant Park crowds, it wouldn’t be some kind of security breakdown. But as we inched closer to the gate, we discovered that’s exactly what it was. No Pier security staffers were to be seen at the main gate and literally thousands of people, people utterly lacking basic common sense, were shoving their way onto the Pier just as thousands more of us were attempting to leave after the fireworks show.

The scene was so ridiculous that one couple was pushing their rented pedicab bike eastward into the teeth of the departing masses. No one was on hand to suggest that might be a bad idea. The people trying to leave were ultimately forced into no more than a three-human-wide exit path as the crowd from outside surged in.

Just across the street at the headlands park, two bike cops were directing traffic in the crosswalk. I complained to one of them about the complete lack of crowd control. “I know,” he said. “It’s Pier security.”

So I called Pier security. “We had it under control,” the desk jockey claimed. When I told him even the cops disagreed, he admitted he was inside and had no read on the situation. “I’m not going to agree with you and I’m not going to disagree with you,” he said.

That amusing, only-in-Chicago response aside, I’ll be amazed if there are no injury reports from the chaotic scene tonight. I don’t throw this phrase around lightly, but I’ll say it here: Someone at Navy Pier should be fired for letting the situation get completely out of hand. And I’d love to hear why the police, seeing the situation deteriorate, couldn’t step in and help avert the potential crisis created by the Pier’s utter failure to control the crowd at its entrance.

Disgraceful, all the way around.