The video: Thousands of onlookers camped out along San Diego's beaches Wednesday night to view a Fourth of July fireworks display that organizers hyped as "bigger and more intense than in past years." Depending on your point of view, the 12th annual Big Bay Boom either lived up to that billing — and then some — or was an unrivaled, embarrassing disappointment. Thanks to a technical glitch, hundreds of fireworks that were expected to start going off at 9 p.m. and last for 18 minutes prematurely launched all at once at 8:55 p.m. The resulting explosive display lasted a mere 15 seconds. (Watch the video below.) The Port of San Diego later explained that the mistake was caused by technicians who sent the wrong signal to the barges the fireworks were being launched from. The force of the simultaneous explosions was so great that San Diego residents reported feeling a large rumble throughout downtown.
The reaction: Ouch, says Katie Kindelman at ABC News. As one onlooker aptly put it on Twitter, "Ooooo ahhh. Said no one in San Diego bay." Don't be so quick to label this a failure, says Maura Judkis at The Washington Post. Perhaps it's "unintentional art" — "a meditation on excess, and a bit of wish fulfillment"; after all, most of us have wondered what would happen if all the fireworks were set off at once. And those who witnessed the catastrophe should actually count themselves lucky, says Maane Khatchatourian at Entertainment Weekly. "Despite the show's brevity, the massive ball of apocalyptic-looking explosions were breathtaking in their own right." See for yourself:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'A speaker courageous enough to stand up to the extremists in his own party'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
How could the Supreme Court's Fischer v. US case impact the other Jan 6. trials including Trump's?Today's Big Question A former Pennsylvania cop might hold the key to a major upheaval in how the courts treat the Capitol riot — and its alleged instigator
-
Today's political cartoons - April 18, 2024Cartoons Thursday's cartoons - impeachment Peanuts, record-breaking temperatures, and more
