The Herculaneum Fire Department’s “water parade” celebrated the organization’s 75 years of service and allowed residents of all ages a chance to soak up some fun.
Chris Baker, assistant fire chief, said about 50 children and parents attended the inaugural event on Aug. 8. The parade traveled on Joachim Avenue from the Taylor Early Childhood Center to the William C. Haggard City Park.
Baker said the parade was an interactive event, where both participants and crowd members used squirt guns, water blasters, buckets, water tanks and hose systems to spray each other with water.
He said the event was short yet sweet, with the parade lasting about 10 minutes followed by a water party in the street.
“Since the parade was so short, we hooked up a truck to the hydrant and let kids and adults play in what was kind of a sprinkler off the back of the truck,” Baker said. “We probably did it for about 10 or 15 minutes after the parade, so everybody got soaking wet and cooled down.”
Baker said many people also stayed to enjoy the Bay of Naples Splash Zone at Kade’s Playground and to try out the several food trucks that were at the event.
He said the only participants in the parade this year were vehicles from the Herculaneum Fire Department, but he hopes that next year more residents, businesses and community groups participate.
“I think we want to do it every year,” Baker said. “Hopefully, we’ll keep growing it and get it to be an annual event that we put in our repertoire at the city of Herculaneum.
“It was the first year this year. It was good because we learned a lot of lessons from it, like how to fill up the buckets and get everybody water before the parade. We’ve got a couple more ideas for how to make it bigger next year.”
Baker said the event has a lot of room to grow because it’s different from other events in the area.
“We’re trying to do something unique and not just replicate what all the other cities are doing so that they can draw crowds at their events and we can draw crowds to our events as well,” he said. “The diversity is good.”
Baker said the event is good for not only celebrating the fire department but to also celebrate the end of summer vacation and get everyone ready to go back to school.
“We’ll probably always do it around the anniversary of the founding of the department, but it works as multipurpose as a back-to-school and end of summer water parade with it being at the beginning of August,” he said.
