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Residents will throw down old blankets and unfold dusty lawn chairs. And curious schoolchildren will delight in missing class to watch, as best they understand, something really cool blow up.
In all, thousands of spectators are expected to show up for the first stage of the Embrey Dam demolition.
When you're standing on your toes, scraping for position and casting wide eyes toward the dam, take a second to scan the tree-lined hill on the north side of the river.
There, inside the much-ballyhooed security zone, you might catch a glimpse of the guys who made this day possible.
And, no, we're not talking about Sen. John Warner, the public face of the dam's destruction.
For the past several days, members of the Army Dive Company have donned dry suits, popped in ear plugs and perched themselves in 33-degree water for four or five hours at a time.
Sound daunting?
Now consider that the soldiers also operated a 60-pound jackhammer drill to put up to 200 holes in the concrete structure you're about to watch crumble.
Sometime before noon Monday, the divers will pack each hole with explosives, 600 pounds in all.
If they’ve done their job, the result should be a 100-foot gap in the Embrey dam.
The dam was built in 1910 to generate electricity, but has been obsolete for years. Breaching the dam will allow spawning fish to move upriver and will eventually allow paddlers to continue their trips without pulling out of the water.
The divers work in two- and sometimes three-person teams.
This weekend, they’re working 24 hours to make sure they’re ready on time.
In many cases, the force of the drill is so intense that while one man punches holes, the other soldier holds the drill operator to keep him from falling back into the water.
At times, the divers work on scaffolding to reach higher points of the dam.
Their superiors use hand signals to communicate with the divers. With the water rushing over the dam and the rat--tat-tat of the drill, even shouting doesn't work.
About 20 divers from the Army's 544th, 511th, 569th and 86th engineering teams out of Fort Eustis have dropped by to drill for at least one shift. The Army's 74th engineering team did not help out, but for good reason. Those soldiers are now in Iraq, searching for weapons of mass destruction that might be stored underwater; recovering bodies in the water; removing debris; and providing hydrographic surveys—maps that boats use to determine if a waterway can support vessels, among other jobs.
Divers comprise the Army’s smallest unit, said Lt. Scott Stroiney, 23, who’s in charge of the 544th team. He considers his soldiers among the Army’s most elite.
The Army has only about 145 divers, Stroiney said, 122 of them out of Fort Eustis.
First Sgt. Michael Poole is used to hearing the same thing when people find out what he does for a living.
"The Army's got divers? Hell, I didn't know they had divers."
He proudly notes that of the 34 guys who started in his first diving classes, only 10 made it through.
"They may look like average soldiers. But they're not average soldiers. They're divers," he said.
Besides blowing up dams, Army divers are called for underwater welding, barge recovery, pier reconstruction and oil spill containment.
"If it's underwater," he said, "we can do it."
Poole doesn't have any professional reason to return to Fredericksburg on Monday, but don't try to keep him away.
Somewhere around noon, Poole said, "we're gonna blow this bad boy up," he said, facing the soon-to-be breached dam.
He had just pulled a five-hour shift on drill duty and looks forward to seeing the results of his work.
"You put in the time and the labor, you might as well watch the product."
• <a href="http://seeing www.wood.army.mil/577th/diver/History.htm" class="flshead"> Army divers on the Web</a>