After the 250th Party: Debris, ‘Code Red’ Air Quality and Patriotic Memories

The morning after America’s 250th anniversary celebration and Washington, D.C.’s record-breaking fireworks show, the National Mall remained mostly closed down. Trash cans were overflowing, and National Guard members were stationed near large pallets of bottled water. National Park Service workers could be seen fishing debris out of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where some of the aerial pyrotechnics had been launched.

D.C. officials issued a Code Red air quality alert on Sunday, urging senior citizens, children and those with health conditions to take precautions.

The “general public may experience health issues. Limit time outside,” the alert said.

The threat of severe thunderstorms prompted the Secret Service and organizers of the July Fourth celebration on the National Mall to evacuate the crowd to nearby public buildings Saturday night, delaying President Donald Trump’s remarks and the fireworks show.

Soaring temperatures also disrupted Saturday’s planned celebrations, with the high setting a daily record of 103 degrees in D.C. Organizers canceled the Independence Day parade on Constitution Avenue, citing the extreme heat warning issued by the National Weather Service. Marching bands that flew in from Utah, Nebraska and Minnesota for that event found a new audience at the Capitol Hill parade on Barracks Row.

D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services reported 92 patient contacts and 34 patient transports from the National Mall on Saturday. George Washington University, the closest medical center to downtown D.C., reported 289 patient contacts as of 10 p.m. Saturday.

Inclement weather also delayed Fourth of July celebrations in Philadelphia, with the fireworks display finally launching just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday. In New York, a fire broke out around 10 p.m. on the Brooklyn Bridge, and while the cause was unclear, city officials said it was probably the fireworks display.

For many of the tens of thousands of spectators who flew or drove to D.C. from around the country to see a military air show and a sky lit up with pyrotechnic explosions, the celebration exceeded their expectations.

“I thought it was so patriotic. I loved it,” Kimberly Conn, who came from Seattle with her family, told NOTUS. “I just stood there for so long, and just watched all of it. It just felt really lovely, really wonderful, and I was so glad that I came.”

The Conn family mostly avoided the chaos of the weather delays by showing up around 10 p.m. and watching from the National Portrait Gallery steps.

“I wish they [the fireworks] would have been earlier, but you can’t do anything about the weather, so it turned out to be a much later night than we thought,” father Steve Conn said.

Sophia, the Conns’ 15-year-old daughter, said it was nice to see everyone singing along to “Y.M.C.A.,” one of the many songs performed by a military band during the fireworks.

“It felt like, oh, these are Americans — these are people together,” Sophia said.

Other visitors were captivated by the elaborate air show over the National Mall. Nine hours of fly-overs featured planes from every branch of the military, including the Air Force Thunderbirds, Navy Blue Angels as well as a NASA aircraft.

“It’s just the power,” said Jim Miller, visiting from Kansas City, Missouri. “It brings tears to your eyes.”

Miller and Debbie Addison watched the air show from a restaurant with a view of the fly-overs. They tried to enter the National Mall around 6 p.m. but abandoned the idea, describing the line to enter the cordoned-off security zone as “insane.”

“The bad thing is we kept getting bad information,” Addison said. “It was hard to know what line you were supposed to be in.”

Miller and Addison opted to watch the fireworks from their hotel, but the air show — billed as one of the largest military aviation demonstrations ever held over the nation’s capital — was an unforgettable experience for them.

“It just kind of makes you stop and just feel very patriotic,” Addison said.

Among many posts on Truth Social on Sunday, ranging from concerns about communism to marking a renovation of the White House’s columns, Trump thanked the July Fourth organizers for the show.

“I would like to congratulate Freedom 250, a Great White House Commission, and Pyrotecnico, on producing the Most Spectacular Fireworks Show I have ever seen, and I’ve seen them all,” Trump wrote.