| OK, what city has the largest fireworks display year after year? Is
it New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles or Las Vegas? Or could it
be Paris, Singapore, Tokyo or Rio De Janeiro? No, none of the above. The
answer is Louisville, Kentucky right in the heartland of the USA.
Thunder over Louisville has become so famous it now goes by the one word name - Thunder. The event kicks off the Kentucky Derby, the most famous horse race in the world. Actually, Thunder occurs two weeks before the Derby and is the annual inaugural kick-off event of two weeks of festivities leading up to the big race. Thunder begins at 3:00 p.m. with an air show that is ranked the fifth best air show in the United States. It lasts about six hours over the Ohio River separating Louisville, Kentucky from its' neighboring cities of Jeffersonville, Clarksville and New Albany, Indiana. The air show lasts 6 and a half hours and ends just before the big fireworks display. Over 100 planes were in this years show including F-4 Phantom (German), F-15, F-16, F-18, F-117 Stealth Nighthawk, P-51 Mustang, B-1B Lancer, C-130 and many more military aircraft. Skydivers jumped from planes nearly a mile high and landed on a barge in the river. Apache Helicopters performed over the river while Aerobatic teams performed overhead. Just before the fireworks started one of the largest USA flags ever unfurled made its way down the river at a quarter mile high. The interstates had been closed and the fireworks began. This year's theme was Stars & Stripes. Fireworks were shot from two barges in the Ohio River and they were a mirror image of each other. The Clark Memorial bridge spanning the states of Kentucky and Indiana was also ablaze in fireworks. Rockets rose and exploded in sync to the music of Neil Diamond, Elton John, Lee Greenwood and others. The music was played through the world's largest sound system. It had 425,000 watts playing through speakers lining both sides of the river. Thirty minutes and several finales later the fireworks were over. Zambelli Internationale had fired 51,334 shells to make it again the world's largest fireworks shows. During Thunder, 73 children were lost and found. By morning 48,860 pounds of garbage had been collected and workers were heading into another shift of garbage collection. Nearly one million people enjoyed Thunder and it is bigger and better every year. We watched it from about a mile away, just outside of the KOA Kampground
where we were staying. It took us about three minutes to return home after
Thunder whereas the people along the river front needed up to three hours
to get home.
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