The muddy, flood swollen Ohio River had encroached beyond the customary limits of its banks and rendered part of the Great Lawn and the shore line along the River,useless. The Belle Of Louisville was anchored in its usual berth but its gangplank was under water.The Chow Wagon had to relocate because of the high water and many of the viewers, that normally camped out on the river banks and in the parks along the shores, were unable to do so. The crowd was considerably smaller, there were only a couple hundred thousand people in attendance this year because of the weather, but nevertheless the show, as usual, was spectacular!
Thunder over Louisville is the official opening of the three week long Derby Festival. There will be many events taking place from now till Derby Day but none as remarkabe as "Thunder". It is touted as being the largest single-day event in the Southeastern United States. The fireworks show is the largest display of fireworks in North America. (I think there is one equally as large in Brazil.)This is the 22nd birthday of the Thunder event.
People come from all over the world to take part in the festivities. Of course the Vestival leads up to The Greatest Two Minutes in Sports, the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May.
I have viewed the fireworks from afar a few times and viewed it once from the roof of the Jefferson County Government Center a few miles away from the river and always hear from my home, the opening cannon booms and the reverberations of the sound waves when the show is in progress, and I've watched it on television, but this year I was privileged to get to be up close and personal.
Let the story be told.
On Thursday,Linda took me down to tour the facility in which we would be spending the next few days. Larry is the Marine Operations Liaison for the event. We met Gregg in the parking garage under the Galt House and then began the tour. Gregg has attended the event in previous years and reserved his room for this year at the end of festivities last year. He shared his room with me. After showing me the layout of the hotel, and trying to familiarize me with the rooms we would be using we went to Courtney's room which has been designated as the family headquarters. That room was #330, Linda and Larry were on another floor, Gregg's room was #710 and the Command Center is on the 24th floor. Needless to say, since I am directionally confused, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where I was. They gave up on me and just had someone in charge of me at all times. Linda vows that next year I will have an ankle bracelet so they can track me. Courtney thinks I should just have a beeper. Gregg had me follow him closely and told me not to lose sight of him. The crowds were tremendous in the hotel halls. It would probably not have been as bad had the weather been clement, but all hotel guests were reluctant to go out into the windy, rainy, cold outside. We were finally ready to go up to the Command Center where all the action is.( Gregg, Linda and I) Wayne Hettinger is the Show Producer and Tim Creed the Show Director. Larry was also there doing his thing. The whole area was a bee hive of activity. Everyone looked important and all had important duties. It was organized chaos. Phones were ringing, people darting in to get directions, advise,and relay occurances, preventing snafus,and so on. The atmosphere is hectic but relaxed and friendly at the same time. There are a lot of laughs and good natured teasing and kibitzing. No frenzied, short tempered behavior going on there. They have access to four hotel room that have been cleared for all of the paraphanalia needed to put on one of the top air-shows and largest fireworks display in the country! One of the rooms is the center for the air-boss and what looks to be a thousand or so wires! The radio equipment and implements necessary for controlling the air-show is in that room also. One room contains one long table with chairs so that the staff can sit down to eat if and when they get the chance, the fourth room has tables along two walls that are buffet tables for the food.Two of the rooms face the river and both have balconies.
One of Larry's duties is to take visitors on a tour of the two rooms and explain all of the tasks and equipment needed to produce this tremendous show.
Part two will be printed out and be available by tomorrow. I'm tired!Ciao
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