By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
WALDPORT – It takes a team to put on Waldport’s fireworks display Monday night.
And the leader of that team, says preparation, timing and safety is everything.
So when 320 fireworks go off for 25 minutes without a hitch starting at 10 p.m. Monday, Rick Booth and his team of seven helpers will be pleased. So should the 8,000 to 10,000 people who get a jump on celebrating Independence Day with Waldport’s July 3 show.
“There’s people who have been sitting out there a long time,” says Booth, who wears many hats in the community – city councilor, fire board member, chaplain, South Lincoln Resources board member and a trained pyro-technician for Oregon’s largest fire works company, Western Display. “Our biggest goal is to try to make sure everybody has a good time.”
That’s no small chore.
In Waldport on Monday it’s all hands on deck.
It actually starts in January when the city gets pricing from Western Display and signs a contract. This year the city is paying $20,000 – money that comes from its lodging taxes — for the fireworks. The rest is up to Booth’s crew and volunteers.
Booth’s volunteers set up a 600-foot perimeter around the launch site, which is on the beach on north side of Alsea Bay and west of the Alsi Motel. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s marine patrol will be around to keep boaters at a safe distance.
Then, a city backhoe digs a long trench where Booth and seven helpers begin the tedious task of placing 350 tubes into wood frames. Once they are placed at 37 degrees (“We want them to go up and land in the bay,” Booth says) and covered with sand, the crew begins loading the fireworks. With 110 three-inch, 110 four-inch and 100 five-inch fireworks – each tube gets a round, he says.
Waldport’s fireworks are a bit unusual because every round and display is lit by hand with flares.
Western Display choreographs the show’s opening, middle and finale by placing specific fireworks in large boxes that are also lit by hand. That compares to the massive display put on July 4 in Newport where the fireworks are ignited electronically with the push of a button.
When the show starts and when the middle and final fireworks displays go off is determined by Wendy Rush Knudsen, a Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue administrative assistant and volunteer whose job it is to time everything and keep the show moving.
Once the show starts, Booth says, Knudsen is the boss – telling them to slow down, speed up and when to light the main displays.
One last word from Booth: “If you see something go up after the show is over that means we had to re-light it,” he says. “We can’t have anything left over.”
Most of all, he says, have fun and be safe.
