This Fourth of July, millions of Americans are under heat advisories as they travel to celebrate their country’s birth with parades, cookouts, and brilliant flashes of color against the night sky. But it’s not only the hamburgers that are hot this year.
In order to reach to their destinations before the Fourth of July, travelers are already packing airports and clogging roadways, predicted to shatter previous travel records. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service issued a warning of a “significant and extremely dangerous” heat wave that will affect most of the West, leaving locals to struggle with oppressive heat.
A holiday mainstay, fireworks were predicted to soar to unprecedented heights, with 16,000 professional performances lighting up the horizon from sea to shining sea in addition to an uncountable number of backyard displays.
This is our way of having fun. It’s the bombs going off in midair. It’s the crimson glow of the rockets. “People express their pride and patriotism in this way,” the American Pyrotechnics Association’s Julie Heckman said.
Every indication suggested a grand celebration: A record-breaking almost 3 million travelers passed through airports in a single day last week, according to the Transportation Security Administration, and this week’s total is predicted to surpass that amount. Additionally, according to AAA’s projections, 60.6 million individuals will drive throughout the holiday season. Even if inflation has decreased, many Americans are still worried about the state of the economy.
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It was urged that people around the West Coast take preventative measures in order to prevent overheating on the vacation.
It was predicted that temperatures would rise to above 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) in California’s coastal and interior regions, and that the heat would also expand to the Pacific Northwest. It was predicted that temperatures in the Southwest desert will reach as high as 120 degrees (49 degrees Celsius). The Middle Atlantic and Deep South were similarly engulfed in hot and sticky weather.
The annual fireworks display in the Northern California city of Oroville was postponed due to the Thompson Fire, which was displacing an estimated 26,000 inhabitants. Hundreds of firefighters were working in intense heat to prevent the fire from spreading to other houses.
From Maine to Hawaii, there was no shortage of BBQ, pastries, cold beverages, and the Stars and Stripes on tap. However, Americans were also commemorating in various locally specific ways.
Some were going to see lobster boat races off the rocky shore in Down East, Maine. In Philadelphia, descendants of the Declaration of Independence signers were ringing the Liberty Bell thirteen times, one for each of the original colonies. Bolinas and Stinson Beach, two Californian villages north of San Francisco, were having their yearly tug-of-war, the losers of which end up in a lagoon.
Of course, there’s also the yearly Coney Island hot dog eating competition in New York.
The common love of nation that unifies Americans on July Fourth often does not apply to the 2024 celebration, which takes place against the backdrop of intense political division and a contentious presidential contest.
The Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular was anticipated to draw tens of thousands of spectators. According to maestro Keith Lockhart, seeing individuals from many political backgrounds converge on Charles River Esplanade is encouraging. To not see the profound differences in our nation, he observed, “one would have to have one’s head pretty deeply stuck in the sand.”
Prior to the performance, he stated in an email that “it is, indeed, a dangerous time.” “This has to be a good thing if we can put aside our differences and celebrate our similarities, even for a single day.”
