The Big Show

Committee preps county, communities for Great American Eclipse

Andrew D. Brosig
Posted 2/24/17

It’s going to be an event people remember for the rest of their lives, right up there with weddings, the birth of a child or a significant birthday.

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The Big Show

Committee preps county, communities for Great American Eclipse

Posted

FORT LARAMIE  – It’s going to be an event people remember for the rest of their lives, right up there with weddings, the birth of a child or a significant birthday.
It’s being billed as the Great American Eclipse and it has the potential to bring a significant economic boost to Goshen County and its communities as thousands of people flood the region for the show in August.
It also has the potential to be a logistical nightmare.
That was the consensus, anyway, as the local Solar Eclipse Committee hosted an informational community forum on Wednesday at the town hall here.
The all-volunteer committee has been working for most of a year. The committee has brought together representatives of the National Park Service, Homeland Security, local Emergency Management
and others in preparation for the Big Show.
“I’ve been waiting for this event for a very long time,” said Roger Spears, K-12 science instruction facilitator for the Goshen County School District #1. Spears is serving as science advisor to the committee.

“Even before my daughter was born – we were living in Colorado at the time – we knew, no matter where we were, what we were doing, we were coming to Wyoming to see this,” Spears said. “This is a one-time eclipse that will transect the entire United State … from Florence, Ore., to Myrtle Beach, S.C. It’s going to be quite
an event.”
A solar eclipse occurs when the orbit of the moon places it directly between the sun and the Earth.
Everyone in the country will see at least a partial solar eclipse – slightly off-center, with the moon blocking only a portion of the solar orb. But Goshen County is in line for one of the best seats in the house, directly in the line of travel as the shadow of the moon traverses the country from northwest to southeast in 185 days and some odd number of hours, minutes
and seconds.
The public can track the exact time until the eclipse, down to the second, via the link at gogoshen.net.
Along with the possibility of a good portion of the residents of neighboring states flooding into Wyoming on the big day, scientists and amateur astronomers from around the world will be flocking to the Cowboy State in August, Spears said. That sheer mass of people could put a massive strain on resources, said Shelly Kirchhefer, Goshen County Emergency Management Director and safety officer for the committee.
“I think this is probably one of those great things for Goshen County,” Kirchhefer said. “It’s great for these folks to come in and drop some of their money locally.”
But that flood of people could – and probably will – mean everything from batteries to gasoline to porta-potties will be in short supply come August, Kirchhefer said. Add in the sheer presence of as many as 50,000 or more additional people, cars, trucks and recreational vehicles at the height of the annual fire season in eastern Wyoming and it could turn into a very interesting weekend, in more ways than one.
“The bad news on this is, it’s really going to get difficult,” Kirchhefer said. “The whole coverage area is going to become a great, big black hole, sucking
in resources.”
And the biggest challenge comes from the fact nobody really knows exactly how many people to expect anywhere along the roughly 3,000 mile path of “totality,” the 60-mile or so wide swath that will be covered by the moon’s shadow. The pressure of that much humanity on Wyoming roads could be immense, Eclipse Committee Director Jennifer Lanier said.
“I asked the Department of Transportation how many people can the road…handle. They just don’t know,” she said. “We’re not sure of the numbers. It could be 10 people, it could be 10 million.
“There are opportunities for everyone in this room to think about how we can make it a good experience,” Lanier said. “There are lots of opportunities for ways we can make this work as a community.”