Cruise Blues: Poor weather leads to low turnout, early exit
Sep. 28—Saturday was not the lowest attendance ever at a Somernites Cruise event in downtown Somerset. But it was close.
Only 86 cars came through the gates on Saturday, with the threat of Hurricane Helene's effects on the weather likely keeping would-be Cruise participants away.
That's one better than the low mark of 85 cars, set in 2021. Normally, downtown Somerset sees close to a thousand cars in downtown Somerset, if not over that figure.
As a result, and with more rain moving in at around 4 p.m. Saturday, organizers closed up shop early, and by 3:30 p.m., downtown was almost deserted aside from some clean-up efforts on the Fountain Square as Somernites volunteers hurried to get things indoors before the weather turned worse.
"A lot of times late in the day, we kind of let the crowd dictate what's going on," said Somernites Executive Director Keith Floyd. "The crowd's moving out now (at around 3:30 p.m.), everybody's got smartphones. They know when the weather is coming. So everybody's pulling out, and they're going to try to beat the rain."
While the event's conditions weren't ideal, things did go "slow and easy," said Floyd, who noted that he only expected about 100 cars given the challenges presented by the environment — and folks still came from places other than southern Kentucky, including a long-distance winner from Indiana.
"The biggest thing I'm proud of is, you've got so many of our volunteers that come out and work in this kind of weather. ... We're a rain-or-shine event. We were here (Saturday) morning at 6 a.m.," said Floyd. "... That's all you can ask from them, so I hope the community knows what this organization does for it, and how committed they are and dedicated they are to work in any kind of weather. That, to me, is what I'm proud of."
Other Cruise events over the weekend, like the Friday Night Thunder Block Party and the Burnside Meet & Greet, were cancelled because of the weather. But the downtown show was set to go on no matter what. The "Campin' the Cumberland" vintage camper rally on Friday had a "decent turnout," said Floyd, with 24 such recreational pieces of rolling nostalgia on display at General Burnside Island State Park, out of about 50 registered; "Half of them came, even with the weather forecast, which is probably an accomplishment," he said.
Floyd noted that "every once in a while, you have these kinds of weekends." He also knows that things could be much worse, however.
"We hate it, because it hurts us financially, considerably, but it hurts the restaurants and the hotels. It hurts the economic impact all the way around," said Floyd. "We hate it, but we don't have any control over that. ... Right now we're blessed that we're not in the situation that Florida or east Tennessee or western North Carolina (are facing). Those kinds of places are taking a beating. A little rain on our car show in the grand scheme of things is really not that important."
Read more in Tuesday's edition of the Commonwealth Journal.
