City preps parks for winter

While Mondays warm weather sent many outside to relive a day of summer, workers prepared city parks for the winter ahead.

One month from today, the city will flip the switch that turns Krug Park and Hyde Park into Holiday Park and the South Pole. Thousands of visitors admire the parks departments hard work each year, but the routine maintenance often goes unnoticed.

Superintendent of Parks Jeff Atkins described the winterization projects the city performs to make sure city facilities endure the winter and are ready for public use when spring arrives.

A crew must visit every restroom, water fountain or ball field irrigation system and blow the water out of the pipes with an air compressor to make sure they do not burst when freezing weather hits the region. With a few exceptions, the city closed its park restrooms and support facilities Oct. 15, with winterization work expected to take a few weeks.

It used to be that October 15 was a drop-dead date, but the last few years it has been warmer and weve kind of gambled with it a bit, Mr. Atkins said. Well keep it on a little longer at places like Heritage Park where we still have leagues going, or at Bartlett Park where we have an event coming up.

One event the department cant gamble with is the holiday lighting ceremonies. City employees begin behind-the-scenes work seven weeks before the lights come on. The earliest jobs involve attaching lights to the snowflakes, snowmen and other items and testing them to make sure they work.

One light goes out and it ruins your whole day, Mr. Atkins said. You cant ever find the one light thats broken, so youre better off putting on a new strand of lights.

Warm, dry weather makes it easier to install large items like the poles that support Santa and his reindeer or other displays that require large equipment. Early work also focuses on the unseen side of the displays, such as the installation of the temporary electrical system that makes it possible to turn large parks into winter wonderlands.

What you see is about half of what weve done, Mr. Atkins said. There is a lot of work that goes into it that people dont even think about.

Clinton Thomas can be reached

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City preps parks for winter