Forecast calling for steady downpour pushes events back a week
COVINGTON, Ky. - Two City of Covington events scheduled for Saturday - the massive Touch a Truck showcase and a volunteer tree planting in five neighborhoods - will be pushed back a week because of a forecast calling for torrential rain.
All other details for the events - time, location, and other logistics - will remain the same, even as they’re moved to Saturday, Nov. 2.
Touch a Truck
“I’m disappointed in Mother Nature, but I can’t change her mind,” said Covington Fire Chief Mark Pierce, who is coordinating the free show-and-tell event that features many dozens of public safety and service vehicles. “We were hoping the forecast would change, but it’s gotten worse as far as attracting a crowd. We don’t want all those kids out in a cold rain.”
At the first Covington Touch a Truck event last year, well over a thousand kids (and adults) climbed on, in, and around the vehicles and interacted with the employees who operated them on a daily basis.
These included vehicles and equipment from not only Covington but also regional agencies, such as rescue helicopters and boats, fire trucks, police vehicles, Public Works construction equipment, motorcycles, tow trucks and others.
The event will now be held 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Latonia Shopping Center on Winston Highway.
Tree planting
Likewise, the tree planting scheduled as part of national Make a Difference Day will be delayed a week but will otherwise be the same, said the City’s urban forester, Municipal Specialist Cassandra Homan.
“Planting in the rain isn’t good for the new trees or the volunteers,” Homan said. “Not only would it hurt turnout, but the volunteers would be miserable - and this is intended as a community event.”
Plus, she explained, soupy dirt - i.e. mud - creates compacted soil that’s bad for the fledgling root systems.
The City and its Urban Forestry Board arranged to plant about 75 trees in five different neighborhoods between 9 a.m. and noon, targeting streetscape areas in what are deemed “urban heat islands.”
Volunteers will gather at specified locations in Eastside, Latonia, MainStrasse Village, Peaselburg, and Wallace Woods next Saturday, Nov. 2.
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