Wichita’s terrain doesn’t exactly make the grade for Slide the City (VIDEOS)

Wichita’s terrain didn’t quite make the grade for the Slide the City water slide set up on the Lewis Street Bridge across the Arkansas River on a hot Fourth of July afternoon.

“Inch the City” is what 8-year-old Izabella Rigueiro of St. Louis called going along the 1,000-foot slide, which could only slightly be considered going “down” a slide.

People would take a running jump onto their inflatable inner tubes and make it a ways along the slide before a volunteer often would have to push them along toward the end. The rules, posted on a sign at the slide entrance, read: “No stopping on the slide.” But rules became more of a suggestion for the flat slide.

“Help, I’m stuck,” one participant said to volunteer Stormy Russell.

“Yes, you are,” Russell said as he grabbed the rider’s ankles and gave her a running push. Russell said the event was a lot of fun but “more work than expected” for volunteers.

Organizers of the traveling Slide the City slide had come to Wichita earlier and measured the slope of the downtown bridge as it heads west toward Lawrence-Dumont Stadium, Troy Houtman, park and recreation director for the city of Wichita, said. But the grade wasn’t quite up to the job of propelling sliders along the way.

“It’s Wichita. It’s Kansas,” Houtman said, adding that people were enjoying getting wet. He said he was pleased with the turnout and with the sum of the activities that the city introduced this year on the Fourth of July – including fireworks – after several years of no community-wide events for the holiday.

Although Izabella’s family had paid for unlimited rides on the slide – $185 for three people when all was said and done, mother Liz Bardin said – they decided to go down only once.

“No way we’re waiting in line,” Bardin said, wearing the Slide the City T-shirt and ball cap that came with her ticket and eating “excellent” food from the Funky Monkey Munchies food truck. She was in town visiting relatives in Towanda. “It’s the slowest water slide in the world.”

Bardin had seen videos of fast-moving water slides in other cities before riding this one; she had even been afraid of the kids getting hurt. Not everyone’s expectations were so high.

“It’s fun. You go slow sometimes, but somebody pushes you. It helps a lot,” said Wichitan Shelly Montgomery as she and a group of friends took a lunch break after two trips on the slide, planning to slide again.

Kylar Young, 7, had the unlimited pass and said he would ride 100 times by the end of the day.

Carol Roberts and her family recently moved to Dodge City, but she was back in Wichita on the Fourth with her 7-year-old son expressly to ride the slide.

“We were one of the first riders,” she said, and her son, Keegan Schalla, with a complimentary mouth guard in his mouth, pronounced it “good.”

Many participants sported star-spangled swimsuits. Some brought their own fancy inner tubes.

The 2,000 available spots on the water slide sold out by the time the Fourth arrived, Houtman said.

The slide opened at 1 p.m. and was to remain open until 8 p.m.

At about 2:45, the Wichita Fire Department arrived and sprayed riders standing in line. The wait was only 10 to 15 minutes, but it was a precaution to keep them cool, said volunteer Kirk Sells.

On the lawn of the Hyatt, a beer garden was set up, with two concerts scheduled: country singer Jessica Lynn at 3 p.m. and Lucky People at 7 p.m.

Jody Yoxall drove from Agra for the Lucky People concert but arrived a little early to hear Lynn.

“She sounds like Shania (Twain),” Yoxall said.

A kids’ zone included two bounce houses, a parachute and a skate ramp for bikers and skateboarders.

By 3:30, more than 70 people had visited the skate area, said Tim Babcock, an employee of Progressive Bike Ramps.

“I want it in my backyard,” said skater Keith Lane.

A baseball game also was scheduled at Lawrence-Dumont at 6:30 p.m. between US9 Armed Forces and the Puerto Rico Collegiate Baseball Club.

A roughly 17-minute fireworks show capped off the day’s festivities Saturday night, shot from a barge in the middle of the river between the Douglas Avenue and Lewis Street bridges for a bit more intimate experience, Houtman said.

The show featured music from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Brad Paisley and Katy Perry as hundreds of Wichitans came out to watch. Small patches of grass caught fire along the west bank of the Arkansas River during the show, but they had mostly burned out by its grand finale.

Leading up to the grand finales of Saturday night, Wichita police had logged relatively few calls about fireworks, Sgt. Roger Runft said at noon Saturday. But a couple of house fires related to fireworks were being investigated, and a man had part of his hand blown off Friday while handling a firework that had malfunctioned, Runft said.

This story was originally published July 4, 2015 at 2:51 PM with the headline "Wichita’s terrain doesn’t exactly make the grade for Slide the City (VIDEOS)."