MOUNT VERNON — Local officials continue to prepare for the total solar eclipse that will hit Knox County on April 8.
Schools will close, and residents are advised to run errands in the morning and be home by 2 p.m.
Deputy EMA Director Amy Seward said officials are still unsure of the population swell for Knox County.
“People might decide that morning to drive up and see totality,” she told the commissioners on Thursday. “I still think the traffic is going to be our biggest problem.”
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon casts a shadow on Earth as it passes between the Earth and the sun. A total eclipse is when the moon completely obscures the sun.
The last total solar eclipse in Ohio occurred in 1806. The next one is scheduled for 2099.
The eclipse enters the United States in Texas. It travels through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana before reaching Ohio.
EMA Director James DeChant said it was suggested that Fredericktown link up with Texas officials and track the eclipse’s progress en route to Knox County.
Seward said the paths of the moon and sun start to cross at 2 p.m. Complete totality in Knox County occurs from around 3:10-3:12 p.m. to 3:15. The eclipse will finish by 4:30 p.m.
The eclipse then moves into Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Canada.
Fredericktown will experience the longest amount of totality in the county. The library system anticipates distributing 10,000 eclipse glasses.
Knox Public Health and Knox Community Hospital also will have some.
Several organizations have planned eclipse events:
•The Fredericktown library and Knox County Park District at Merrin Park
•SPI (Science Play-Space Initiative) at Ariel-Foundation Park
•The park district at Wolf Run Regional Park
•Brown Family Environmental Center
Solar eclipse communication
Statewide, EMA officials are evaluating situational updates throughout the day via an ongoing ZOOM call, tracking events and the progress of the eclipse.
In Knox County, officials are considering using the Tango Tango app as a way to communicate outside of MARCS.
MARCS (Multi-Agency Radio Communication System) is Ohio’s wireless, digital communication system for first responders. DeChant noted that no one has tested MARCS in terms of system overload if all responders call in at the same time.
“We needed redundancy anyway, and now is a good time to have it,” he said of the Tango Tango app.
Other EMA activities
Knox County EMA hosted a school reunification walk-through for EMAs in Central Ohio.
“I think that the people at state see we’re ahead of everybody,” DeChant told the commissioners. “They are very pleased with what we’ve done and don’t understand how we were able to get everybody together.”
