SWANTON The Village of Swanton will be the best place to experience complete totality during the upcoming Great American Eclipse
By: Jacob Kessler
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jacob@thevillagereporter.com
Fulton County, and other areas of Northwest Ohio, are expected to see an inundation of people as they flock to view what has been dubbed the Great American Eclipse.
A total eclipse takes place when the moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, which blocks the entire face of the sun.
A statement from Fulton County’s Ohio Emergency Management Agency is as follows. “Fulton County expects a significant increase in visitors to the area between Friday, April 5th and Tuesday, April 9th, 2024.
This is a great opportunity for local businesses; however, preparedness will be crucial for this event.
Grocery stores, gas stations, hotels, restaurants, transportation services, retail stores, and other establishments will experience heavier than normal business.”
“What You Can Do to Prepare Your Business: Back-up Plans / Scheduling: Prepare for an increase in customers; have needed supplies on hand; consider extending hours of operation to meet customer needs and have back-up plans if staff is delayed due to traffic. Avoid scheduling major events that are not eclipse-related, for example: funerals.”
“Employee Preparedness: Encourage employees to have a full tank of gas; have their own resources ready at home; have daycare needs met, etc., by Thursday, April 4th, 2024. Gas stations may be very busy or may be waiting on resupply. Make sure your staff can get to work.”
“Cash/Financial Transactions: Be prepared for more cash transactions. You may have larger than normal cash deposits over the weekend. Check ahead of time if your bank will be open on Monday, April 8th, 2024.”
How Does Your Credit / Debit Card Machine Access the Internet??? If you use cell service/cell wireless service for your transactions, be prepared with a backup plan.”
“We anticipate a high demand for cellular service during the impact period, especially Monday, April 8th, 2024. You may find you are not able to make transactions; have a backup plan to meet your customers’ needs.”
“Communications: Anticipate possible cellular service disruptions due to increased demand. Visitors may have urgent requests to use your landline business phone if cell service is limited; decide how you want to handle these requests and make sure employees know what to do. If it is a 911 emergency and you have a landline, be ready to help! Use Wi-Fi whenever possible.”
“Regularly Scheduled Deliveries: Evaluate when you receive your regular deliveries; deliveries for Monday, April 8th, 2024, may be significantly delayed due to an overwhelming number of vehicles trying to come into and leaving Fulton County. Consider rescheduling for Tuesday or order extra the week prior.”
“Restrooms: Be aware many visitors will be camping in authorized and potentially unauthorized locations; expect customers who may be primarily interested in using business restrooms. Public restrooms will be in short supply and port-a-potties in limited locations may be at capacity until serviced.”
“Weather and Your Business: If conditions are cloudy, visitors with hotel reservations will most likely not change their plans, but the day-trippers may move to a location with better viewing conditions; there is no way to predict this, but monitoring the weather forecast the week prior to April 8th, 2024, will be useful for your business. Even if it is cloudy, you can still experience the darkening effect of the eclipse.”
“Viewing Safety: If your business will be selling or distributing eclipse viewing glasses and handheld solar viewers ensure they are certified with a designated ISO 12312-2 international standard. For more information visit:” https://ema.ohio.gov/media-publications/ohio-total-solar-eclipse
With so much being said about this year’s coming eclipse, one might wonder why there is such a big deal being made. Why is this eclipse so special?
For starters, this will be the last total eclipse for North America until March 30th, 2033. The only state that will see totality at that point will be Alaska, which also has a difficult past when it comes to weather at that time. The next one after, which will darken North America, will not take place until August 23rd, 2044.
That eclipse, the “Prairie” Eclipse will come down from the Arctic areas in Canada and travel into North Dakota. The next “Great American Eclipse” that will go over a good part of the United States will happen a year later on August 12th, 2045.
So, unless you plan to travel the world to see a total eclipse, for many this will be their only shot for twenty years.
But something so special comes with a lot of traffic. Eclipse visitation models predict areas to see a total ranging from 931,000 to 3,725,000 additional visitors than normal, with Ohio areas seeing anywhere from 125,000 to 500,000 people. For this reason, schools in Fulton County have already moved to close school for the day.
A joint statement released by school superintendents stated, “The Fulton County Superintendents, with guidance from local and state organizations, have decided to cancel school and evening activities on Monday, April 8, 2024.”
“Based on past solar eclipse data, April 8th will bring congested traffic and an overload of infrastructures due to the influx of visitors numbering in the 10’s – 100’s of thousands. For additional information visit https://ema.ohio.gov/.”
Fulton County EMA Director Becky Goble explained that this decision was made following long discussions. Schools had reached out weeks in advance asking for information and the EMA’s opinion.
With the eclipse slated to take place during the time when students would be traveling home, a decision was made to cancel school.
This was due to the large amount of traffic that is expected, leading to the possibility of children being stuck on buses for hours as they try to navigate their way through.
This traffic is also a concern for first responder agencies, who have already made plans to have additional personnel on station for those days.
With traffic being a possible issue, one issue brought up was that of response times for first responders. If traffic does become an issue, it may take longer for personnel to arrive.
This may be even more of an issue on the turnpike if drivers decide to pull over to the side to view the eclipse.
Communication for first responder agencies has also been a concern, with a solution coming together involving amateur radio enthusiasts.
The hope is to have an operator at each fire and police station, if possible, just as a backup in case communication systems go down, Director Goble explained.
Goble also put forth the idea that residents plan ahead before the day of the eclipse. “I would not prepare the day before; I would prepare days before. Fill up your gas tank, don’t wait to get groceries. Do it days before. People need to be prepared for the influx of traffic.”
“It’s not going to take ten minutes for a trip to Walmart, it’s going to be more like a 30-minute trip. The Ohio EMA has predicted our area will see a doubling of our population for the event. I just want people to be prepared. This is nothing like 2017, this is bigger.”
The Village of Swanton may see the majority of people who flock into the area. Swanton Mayor Toeppe explained that their police chief is worried about all the possible and that there are concerns regarding people pulling off the side of the road.
“I know the eclipses in other areas have seen a huge amount of traffic influx. It is hard to predict where people are going to hang out.”
“We are trying to be prepared for traffic issues and those sorts of things. Some organizations in town are also preparing events for the eclipse like one on the corner of Main and Zeiter Way,” said Mayor Toeppe.
Director of the Fulton County Visitors Bureau, Julie Brink, explained that she will be holding meetings for anyone in the county who may wish to learn more about the coming eclipse. These meetings will be especially helpful to businesses as well, but all are welcome.
She also explained that, at this time, hotels had not become fully booked. It is anticipated that, as time goes on, hotels will fill up much faster.
Brink also explained that hotels to the east of our area have been getting booked up much faster and that prices have become inflated due to the eclipse.
These meetings are scheduled to take place at the Fulton County Museum and Welcome Center on February 22nd at 6:30 p.m. and at the Swanton Library on February 29th at 6:30 p.m.
Some agencies are warning people to get eclipse glasses now, as supply may dwindle as it gets closer to the date of the eclipse.
The time of totality for the eclipse is scheduled to begin in the area around 3:10 p.m. and will last for minutes for those who are located in an area of totality.
According to GreatAmericanEclipse.com, Swanton can expect to be in totality for around 1 minute, with Bowling Green’s experience lasting for three minutes.
Areas of Fulton and Williams County that are not in totality will still experience the eclipse, with 99% of the Sun being covered by the Moon
