BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — We are just over a month away from the April 8 total solar eclipse but safety officials in Monroe County said the time to start planning is right now.
The county and Bloomington specifically are in the direct path and officials said Wednesday they are expecting around 300 thousand people to visit for the event.
Keeping all those people safe, they said, is a massive logistical undertaking.
“There’s going to be such a large volume of traffic and people who expect to be or get to their final destination by a certain time — that may not happen,” said Sgt. Kevin Getz with the Indiana State Police.
Across the board, agencies said traffic was their number one concern. State Police said their primary focus that day will be the interstates and state roads. Sgt. Getz said people should be prepared to wait.
“It’s going to take us a while to get everybody out of Bloomington and into their final destination,” Sgt. Getz said.
City streets are also expected to experience gridlock. The Bloomington Police Department said it’s preparing to be limited to bike or even foot patrols.
“We are spreading our people out in case it gets to the point where we can’t drive around so we’ll have officers in all different parts of the city,” Chief Mike Deikhoff said.
The sheer number of people that officials expect has the potential to make communication difficult. All those cell phones will strain the system and could make service limited or even non-existent.
“We have planned for a cell phone outage or at least throttle down,” said Benjamin Hunter with IU Public Safety. “But we’ve also planned even for our internet connections here.”
The last total eclipse in Indiana was before anyone around today was alive so officials openly admit that they’re planning for the unknown.
Most of the preparations have been based off of the experience of cities and towns that have done it before.
Both Hunter and Getz have previous experience with large events like the Indianapolis 500. However, they point out that planning for this type of event is different.
“[The Indianapolis 500 is] a long-term event. We know people are going to leave at the end of event. We know the traffic congestion,” Hunter said. “The difference here is people are going to show up the weekend before.”
Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson announced that all city offices would be closed that day and employees would work remotely.
The city’s police department is requiring all officers to work on the day of the eclipse and the fire department will be using its administrative staff for extra bodies.
Despite the headaches that are likely to come, officials still encouraged people to visit Bloomington and Monroe County to experience the once-in-a-lifetime celestial event.
You can find more information on events and safety at Visit Bloomington.
