Lots of work preps levee for Fourth

• By STEVEN WARD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 3, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 10:45 a.m.

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City-parish Department of Public Works employees have been toiling for two months to clean the steps on the river side of the levee for Friday’s Fourth of July extravaganza downtown.

The Mississippi River crested in Baton Rouge on April 21-22 at 43 feet, well above the 35-foot flood stage, which is the stage at which the river would overrun its banks if not for the man-made levees.

Davis Rhorer, executive director of the Baton Rouge Downtown Development District, said the levee steps will be ready Friday for visitors who will be there to look up in the night sky at the main event.

That main event — “WBRZ Channel 2 and The Advocate Present Fireworks on the Mississippi” — caps the daylong celebration.
The fireworks display has been a downtown hallmark for 40 years, and the levee steps, where people line up to watch, can hold 65,000 people, Rhorer said.

Although all the Fourth of July events are promoted by the Downtown Development District, most revolve around The USS Kidd Veterans Memorial.

“I think the whole day is a great opportunity for Baton Rouge to come together and celebrate the birth of our country,” said Maury Drummond, director of the USS Kidd Veterans Memorial.

The Star-Spangled Celebration starts off with four one-mile runs at 8 a.m. and continues with tours of the USS Kidd, live music, food booths and activities for kids.

Drummond said F-15 Eagle Fighters will conduct a fly-over at 6 p.m., leading to a re-enactment of a World War II air attack on the USS Kidd at 6:10 p.m.

Friday’s downtown events are the one and only fundraiser the USS Kidd has each year, Drummond said.

Rhorer said the daylong downtown celebration, which culminates in the 9 p.m. fireworks display over the river, is a great way for people to kick off the holiday weekend.

“There are a lot of people in Baton Rouge who might not know about the USS Kidd and what it means for this city. But it is a symbol of people who died for our freedom,” Rhorer said.

Commissioned in 1943, the USS Kidd is a World War II-era destroyer named after Rear Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd Sr., who was killed aboard the USS Arizona during the surprise attack by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor.

The restored ship, moored in the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, has been open to the public since August 1983.