Brown County is in the path of totality for the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse. Local tourism and emergency agencies are already in the planning phases, anticipating an influx of visitors to the area next year.
Submitted photo | Eclipse2024.org
All eyes will be on the skies next spring when a solar eclipse will take place on Monday, April 8, 2024.
Those looking up in Brown County can expect to see a full eclipse, as the county is in the path of totality.
This phenomenon has local tourism and emergency agencies beginning preparations for the event now.
Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Kamady Lewis presented to the Brown County Commissioners on Feb. 1, saying that the eclipse is an opportunity to incorporate the local community and visitors alike.
Brown County is one of only eight counties in Indiana that are in the line of totality: Brown, Greene, Knox, Johnson, Monroe, Rush, Shelby and Wayne counties will all be able to view a total solar eclipse.
Totality will enter Indiana near Vincennes around 2 p.m. and exit Union City. There will be between two and four minutes of totality depending on location.
The partial eclipse will begin around 1:47 p.m. The full eclipse begins at approximately 3:01 p.m. and ends at 3:12 p.m. The partial eclipse will end around 4:25 p.m.
“It’s going to be a big event regardless of us doing something or not,” Lewis told commissioners.
Lewis hoped to get a proclamation to change the name of Brown County for the day, to Eclipse County.
“We want to jump on it early so we can plan something surrounding that,” she said.
The CVB has already reached out to someone who used to work at NASA, who agreed to speak at an event, some meteorologists are willing to speak as well, Lewis said.
“We really want to do stuff where we can incorporate the visitors that are going to come here … but hopefully (also) involve the schools,” she said.
“We’ve reached out to different groups and we really want to give this our all and make it a very well-rounded weekend into that Monday.”
The CVB wants to start by changing the name of the county for the day, and they also want to order disposable glasses designed for eclipses, with a logo that says, “Eclipse County.”
“It should be an awesome event and I think it will be fun to have those educational events leading up to it,” Lewis said.
“It’s just so rare to have it, so we need to take advantage while it is here.”
The last total solar eclipse was in August of 2017.
Another goal of the CVB is to have a map available with places to watch the eclipse that are safe and not on the side of the road, Lewis said.
“It will be a cool event,” she said.
“It’s just such a good opportunity for the educational side of it. It’s really cool and you don’t realize it. Just want to make sure we get involved with the schools and do something special for everyone to remember.”
Commissioner Jerry Pittman requested that Lewis write up a proclamation for the commissioners.
‘In the heat of it’
The Brown County Emergency Management Advisory Committee (EMAC) also discussed the eclipse at its meeting on Feb. 7.
Brown County EMA Director Susan Armstrong said that multiple agencies are taking planning for the event “very seriously,” including Indiana Department of Homeland Security (IDHS), Department of Natural Resources, national and state parks.
Indiana is within a one-day drive of 70% of the U.S. population, according to Armstrong.
Armstrong said that IDHS said that Brown County needs to be prepared for a one-day increase to its population by three to four times.
That does not include the population of visitors to Brown County State Park, Yellowwood State Forest, Lake Monroe and other public lands.
“We’re really going to have to make sure that we’ve got a solid plan in place for how we’re going to deal with the influx of people, the stress on our communications, everything,” Armstrong said.
Being on a Monday afternoon, the timing will affect school.
“There are all sorts of puzzle pieces we’re going to have to put in place to deal with the fact that 15 minutes before totality hits, people will be pulling off the side of the road and stopping where they are so that they can see it,” she said.
“We are going to be at the heat of it when this happens.”
Brown County Sheriff Brad Stogsdill said that he traveled to Henderson, Ky. to view the totality of the 2017 eclipse.
He said there were people everywhere.
“Thousands of people, traffic was stopped,” he said.
“Any public place there was, there were people out in lawn chairs. It wasn’t any kind of party, there were just massive amounts of traffic.”
With Brown County already being a destination, Armstrong said some implications that can be expected for the area are extreme demands for hotels, campsites, restaurants, entertainment facilities, parks, extreme traffic, stresses to local infrastructure, and potential for local income generation and educational opportunities.
There are also more cascading impacts, that EMAC will prepare for in the coming months, such as landing zones for an air ambulance, ambulance accessibility, strain on communication infrastructure, first aid stations, state park ingress/egress and traffic, vehicles out of fuel and the potential for severe weather.
Phone service has the potential to be strained with an influx of visitors in the county, and Armstrong said she has already contacted a company about getting a cell phone service booster van, which would increase signals.
“There’s going to be so much we have to plan for,” Armstrong said.
“It’s going to have an effect on every piece of Brown County. It’s not just going to be a public safety thing.”
She said that she has viewed after-action reports from some of the counties through Kentucky and Illinois that dealt with the eclipse in 2017, with information on how they planned and things they didn’t realize were going to be an issue.
“It’s going to be big, and it’s really going to have an impact on Brown County for that week.”
