NORTH RIDGEVILLE – Elyria’s loss was North Ridgeville’s gain Friday night as several thousand people enjoyed a rousing pre-July Fourth fireworks show over South Central Park.

Even people who were some distance away got a show.

“We’ve never been to North Ridgeville before (for fireworks),” Mike Spurling said as he and his wife, Denise, perched on a guardrail on state Route 83, about a half-mile from the park. The Elyria couple, who rode their motorcycle, decided to come to North Ridgeville to see the show since they knew they weren’t going to get one in Elyria. Elyria canceled its big Independence Day fireworks show this year due to financial woes.

Spurling said he and his wife were looking forward to some big displays — and they weren’t disappointed. Neither was most of the rest of the big crowd, judging from all the “aahhs” as the first fireworks were signaled by big booms just before 10 p.m.

A lack of donations threatened cancellation of this year’s show, but $6,000 in donations, some of which came at the 11th hour, according to Fire Chief Richard Miller, ensured the show went forward. The city kicked in $4,000 for the display, according to the chief.

Parking was at such a premium that hundreds of trucks and cars lined both sides of Route 83 from Center Ridge Road south past the South Central Park parking lot across the Ohio Turnpike overpass. Roadside parking stretched nearly as far as a second overpass over double sets of railroad tracks not far just north of Sugar Ridge Road.

One of the few apparent sour notes struck came when people were forced to wait in long lines to use portable toilets after the park’s only permanent restrooms were rendered unusable by a sewer backup Thursday. Service department workers spent the day snaking the lines but were unable to make needed repairs in time, according to Miller.

For Alex Figueiredo and his 5-year-old daughter Paige, that meant a long wait. “This is her first fireworks show,” he said, fearing they’d miss the start of the show. “It’ll probably be 20 minutes.”

“I’ve really got to go,” she told her dad.

For his excited daughter, that sounded like an eternity. “I like purple, pink and blue,” she said, hoping to see her favorite colors in the sky.

She saw those and plenty more, as displays went up in rapid-fire sequence and the huge bursts of red, green and blue fireworks fanned out across the skies.

Contact Steve Fogarty at 329-7146 or sfogarty@chroniclet.com

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