  It is generally admitted that gravitational interactions become large at an
invariant distance of order $1$ from the black hole horizon. We show that due
to the ``atmosphere'' of high angular particles near the horizon strong
gravitational interactions already occur at an invariant distance of the order
of $\sqrt[3]{M}$. The implications of these results for the origin of black
hole radiation, the meaning of black hole entropy and the information puzzle
are discussed.
