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Pressure
2026
Yes,
we do need another D-Day movie
I
walk a lot. I check NOAA's forecast five times before heading out. If there's a
ten percent chance of rain, I have a Gore-Tex slicker in my daypack. I'm always
over-prepared for weather. One day I was walking down Ratzer Road, a road I've
walked hundreds of times. I passed wide lawns and suburban McMansions, some of
them costing a million dollars. I felt carefree. That did not last.
Boom.
In the time it took me to type the word "boom," everything changed.
The sky turned black. Forty-foot evergreens swayed so drunkenly I feared they'd
lash me like the tail of a lunging tiger. Pelting hail obscured my vision. With
every step I pushed against a locked door – the wind was that determined to
prevent me from moving. I recognized that this is the kind of weather that
kills. I frantically sought a nook where I could take shelter in this, not my
neighborhood, and, again, that fast, it was all over. The sky was suddenly
dove-gray. The hail relaxed to a light drizzle. The Apocalypse was canceled.
My
best guess is that I was stuck in a dangerous phenomenon called a
"microburst." Microbursts damage structures, cause car accidents and
plane crashes, and they do kill. Ultimately, though, what it was, was weather.
In
Indiana, after a tornado, I heard of a grandfather trying to hold back his
grandson, to no avail. The tornado pulled the tyke out the window. In 2011, in
Paterson, NJ, I was evacuated during Hurricane Irene. The Passaic River was
coming up through the floorboards. Within hours the entire neighborhood, for a
mile around, was under water. In 2012, after Hurricane Sandy, for most of two
weeks, we had no electricity and substandard tap water. In 2021, thirty New
Jerseyans died during Hurricane Ida. One victim drowned on the very non-aquatic
Lackawanna Avenue, near a Best Buy and a Barnes and Noble. Two people tried to
rescue her, but these Good Samaritans had to themselves be rescued by fire
department crews. Her body was never found.
Weather.
We
humans have dominated much of nature. We have extended average lifespans,
conquered smallpox, and manipulated the landscape to our whim. But we are still
mere playthings in the hands of weather. A new film, Pressure, examines
the impact of weather on a history-making event: D-Day.
Perhaps no human accomplishment supersedes D-Day as an expression of humanity's power. D-Day was the largest seaborne invasion in history. On June 6, 1944, almost 160,000 Allied troops landed on Normandy's beaches. These included troops from the United Kingdom, Canada, and twelve other Allied nations. Over 7,000 naval vessels and 12,000 aircraft participated. An estimated 100,000 French resistance fighters coordinated, via coded messages, with overseas planners and carried out crucial and meticulous preparatory operations behind enemy lines. For example, the French derailed Nazi supply trains inside tunnels. Repairing a train derailment inside a tunnel is much harder than doing so in an open field. By the end of June, Allies had delivered 570,000 tons of supplies. By the end of August, two million Allied troops were in France.
