There are so many steps, factors and regulations that affect the Bayfront fireworks show- and this year is especially impacted ! Jill Doczi, Fireworks organizer explains:
You can’t just use any barge. It has to be a certain-sized, oceangoing barge with a certain kind of edge around it and certain features. As has been the issue the past few years, there are major, multi-year projects on the HRBT and the CBBT utilizing those types of barges, and the cost to get those to unload all their equipment, suspend their scheduled work and move from their locations for three days would be unthinkable. ADDITIONALLY, this year poses the issue of availability on a huge nationwide anniversary — the 250th.
When there is a shortage of barges, you work with what you have. What we have is a barge being used already on July 4 that we are lucky to share.
Keep in mind, this is only the logistics of the barge. We also need to have an available tug and staff, the city services must be available on a busy holiday. VB fire marshal must be on site the entire time in Chesapeake while the barge and explosives are there, then on site here on our beach while the barge is here. A pyrotechnic crew, each of which has to be highly vetted far ahead of time by multiple security agencies, is dedicated to our show. It IS essentially a giant bomb that floats past vital shipyards, Little Creek Amphib Base and over major tunnel-bridges like HRBT and CBBT, so the people involved can’t just be found on the street to work for a day gig. They must have multiple permits at the federal and state level as well as longshoreman insurance.
The fire marshal’s department is busy July 4, so they’re stretched thin, and we were told it wasn’t an option to get a permit from fire for July 4. We also have to have a plan in place with a city special events person, beach police, traffic control, maritime police and Coast Guard to be on site for our show. They are stretched thin on July 4 as well.
So, the city show will load for days before July 4 and leave Chesapeake that morning. They will shoot at night and head back arriving very early July 5 to Chesapeake. They and the fire marshal get to sleep a bit and start loading our show on July 5. They will leave early afternoon on July 6 to arrive in the bay for our show.
While we were told by fire marshal that July 4 was out of the question, he did say July 2 was a possibility, and we did explore that.
If we wanted to shoot on July 2, the crew would have to be an independent second crew, and our show would absorb the cost of the second crew, their permit fees, their travel, hotel, per diem, lodging, insurance, etc. If you’ve ever worked in maritime, insurance for Jones Act and workers comp per person is crazy. We would also absorb the cost of a separate barge and tug on our own. The cost for the same show, but on July 2, was $21,000 extra. We still very much considered it.
The final hurdle: This is a huge year for July Fourth fireworks (250th), and that added to barge availability issues. We seriously explored July 2, and in the end, a barge couldn’t be secured. There are no extra barges floating around the East Coast. D.C. alone will use eight barges for the federal 250th celebration on the Potomac.
In the end, rather than have nothing on this once-in-a-lifetime milestone celebration, we chose to close out the weekend by celebrating 1776 on 7/6 with a bang!
Why can’t we just have it on the beach and get rid of about half those issues?
- We aren’t allowed to close off a large area of the public beach for the entire holiday weekend to prepare, load and have a show on the sand. Can you imagine how upset people would be if we had to block off our beach across multiple accesses? But that doesn’t matter anyway because of the next answer.
- After the Ocracoke fireworks explosion in July 2009 that killed and injured multiple people, safety rules tightened up everywhere. You can only load shows that are far enough away from people and structures to keep them from harm. So, we can’t trot giant 8-foot-diameter explosives down the beach paths all day with houses 16 feet on either side and people using the already full beach on a holiday. We also couldn’t place explosives with the capability of flying 800 feet sideways within 250 feet (roughly the distance from a house to the high tide line) of houses and people.
- Side note: This is also why it has to load in at an industrial dock in Chesapeake. Imagine the fire power of an entire truck full of hundreds of shells and what that could do to a block of houses on Jefferson or Sandy Bay, or even the boat ramp. It would never be permitted by the fire marshal. Don’t think we didn’t ask though. Immediate answer: “Absolutely not.”
- There are SOME shows that can shoot from land, but, they must have a safety perimeter that meets the requirements. For instance, a 2-inch shell can fly roughly 200 feet in any direction, including sideways. So, if you want to load a show with 2-inch shells or smaller, there have to be no buildings or people within 200 feet of the loading area or the show. That also means the fireworks are lower and harder to see by a wide crowd because they only explode at 200 feet in the air. A 3–inch shell needs 300 feet of load-in and crowd-viewing perimeter, etc. The little ones that look like they’re exploding right above the barge deck are 2-inch shells. Our show uses up to 8-inch shells, so the whole beach gets a good view. The barge is so far out to get the necessary 800 to 1,000 feet of safety perimeter. That’s why Coast Guard and marine police are required to secure that perimeter. If an 8-inch shell got loose and shot sideways, it won’t hit anyone on the beach.
Why is it okay to shoot fireworks at a stadium on land? The stadium viewing area is a few hundred yards. Our viewing area is three miles long. The small fireworks permitted for safety at a stadium or a small venue would look like sparklers to our audience. To meet safety requirements to load a show in and shoot on our beach, we’d be talking about some guys with bottle rockets, which would be a sad, sad show.
Ocean Park Civic League 
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