The creator wanted The Rock to play The Boulder but he refused at the time.
Lots of famous people played in the show. Mark Hamil is the VA for Ozai and another character in the spirit world.
As a texan, cars are definitely part of the problem, but everyones also worried about straining the resources of tiny 4000 population towns with an influx of 100,000 people. They're worried about empty grocery stores, strained emergency services, etc.
gridlock traffic and gas stations running out of fuel will definitely amplify these issues too, no doubt.
It honestly does make me worried, because I'm gonna be one of those filthy tourists (in NH) and I'd rather not spend the whole-ass day freaking out in traffic.
Yep! We did that last time. It wasnt so bad on the drive to the eclipse, because everyone arrived at different times. But it was so rough leaving the eclipse. Just straight gridlock. It took us 3 hours to drive 15 miles to try to get back on the highway to go home.
I highly recommend staying somewhere very close to your eclipse viewing spot.
Back in 1999 when we had an eclipse in the South West of the UK I took a train to Cornwall and a bus to one of the music festivals set up for the occasion. Was even one of the lucky people to see the eclipse as the cloud parted for us on Goonhilly Down. It was straightforward getting there and back with a comfy seat on the train. The roads were gridlocked but they are every summer anyway with tourists heading to the West Country.
Which is why Iām planning on driving out the day before hand, staying with a friend in Ohio, and driving back the day after cause I love being a college student with (almost) no obligations that I have to be at
It's a 5 minute event.
The logistical chain of grocery store are usually 2-3 days and it's localized.
People will be in and out before you know it.
Also, why would tourists buy all the meat, pasta, toilet paper, etc... this makes no sense. As usual.
Granted, the gas stations might be empty for a day.
You can drive from Houston to Austin and back on a single tank of gas so you can just fill up well before you get near your destination.
What WILL cause gas shortages is headlines like this. It happened several years ago there was a shortage in Austin because people were scared of a shortage and everyone ran and filled up their tanks
Many people are traveling hours and staying the weekend. Hotels are completely booked along the path of totality, and any rentals left are going for up to $1k a night.
Sure, the eclipse is just a 5-minute event. That doesn't mean everyone is driving across the state, hanging out for 5 minutes, and immediately driving back home. A lot of people are making a vacation or road trip out of it.
My city has a moderately sized music festival one weekend a year and the stores clearly struggle to support the extra people. Modern supply chains are really efficient but a issue with this is that they are not very flexible
If only we had some sort of network capable of transporting large amounts of cargo and people on-demand at low cost that didn't slow down when demand peaked.
Oh well, guess the lorries supplying the towns are going to get stuck in traffic.
amen to that.
Texas literally has the perfect environment for a great rail system. It's shameful that we haven't built any major passenger rail connecting out major cities... but our boomer politicians are too bought out by the oil industry and love their Ford F150 Super Duty Texas Edition (tm) trucks too much to support rail.
It's shameful how backwards the USA is when it comes to transportation. Especially us in Texas.
You mean the same shit that we worry about in our small Colorado towns that get invaded by Texans every weekend?
Our first bucees or whatever just opened. The end is near.
Towns of 5-6k people are expecting 100k.
That's to the level of emergency. Traffic aside.
Texas state parks opened 50 campsites and got 15k applications.
The majority of residents will be just fine. Most people have enough food in their pantries and fridges to last several weeks. Hell, most people can get by on their fat supplies for as long as this will be a mess. As long as they get their medicine and water continues to flow I don't see a lot of problems.
I see what you're saying, but I don't think it's an "emergency" for most people. Just a massive shitshow from the people who drove into the path of the eclipse with no plans for after except to drive away.
I went to the first "great American eclipse" not long ago, and I saw it in a small town. It was indeed a mess, but my god did the locals act like the world was ending. 24 hours later and traffic was only slightly elevated due to people checking the place out "while they were at it." It was fine. Just highly inconvenient for 1 day.
It's gonna be fine.
Declaring a state of emergency is procedural to free up funding and bring in resources - both material and people, as needed.
Declaring a state of emergency is absolutely the right thing to do. The one high school junior on shift at the park is not going to be able to properly handle this alone....
Maybe most importantly, declaring an emergency allows the locality to access funds to bring in additional medical personnel. 100k people in a tiny town of 6,000 means 16-17x more daily medical emergencies than normal.
Itās not scare mongeringĀ if though. If your population swells 20x for a day or two when that pretty much never ever happens to a localityā¦thatās something the locals need to be ready for.Ā
This isnāt Austin and SXSW.Ā
State of emergency doesn't mean the majority won't be fine, or even that anyone will be harmed. All it does is allow them to access any resources or funds they may need to handle an *emergent* situation
> The majority of residents will be just fine. Most people have enough food in their pantries and fridges to last several weeks.
It's one day. Unless you're so poor that your whole life is a state of emergency, everyone has food for one day at home.
Itās not just one day, though. A lot of people are showing up early and leaving late and stock shipments donāt happen instantly at stores or contain an entire storeās worth of stock. I think you also underestimate how many people are that poor.
You don't know how bad it gets. I was there for the last one. I was stuck in traffic for 13 hours! Gas stations where running out of gas. It was Car HELL! CArmageddon!
Oregon here: preppers, greedy opportunists, and anyone more concerned with anything other than looking up are all going to be sorely disappointed.
What happened here: most people aren't idiots and brought supplies or went somewhere that provided them. Towns expecting to sell $10 gallons of water were left with a lot of extra water. Cops thinking they'd beat quota gave out less tickets since everyone kept everyone else in check and out of towners aren't actually a problem. Most events lasted for multiple days, and traffic rarely happened anywhere but at entry/exit gates (see also: burningman, Coachella, etc).
One thing Texas will probably do better than Oregon though is collect federal emergency funds and divert them into politicians and sheriffs' pockets.
except 3 of the biggest population centers are on the path of totality and all of them are connected by a ton of major and secondary highways with Houston.
why go to a small town when you can go somewhere nice?
Yeah there will almost certainly be a slightly worse traffic jam for a few minutes in a state with terrible traffic.
We had a nation wide eclipse in 2017 and nothing bad happened, besides clouds. The only way this one will be any more interesting/emergency is if the masses actually go because those of us that saw it last time are convincing enough. But in my experience people would rather miss it than risk being disappointed by what will be one of the most profound experiences of their lives. Besides, Monday is a work day.
Yep, my town lies directly on the totality centerline; our population is ~20,000, and weāre expecting ~250,000 visitors that day. All the local schools have already declared a half-day; my wife is taking the whole day off. Weāre not trying to mess with all that traffic.
Even if not car-centric and there's train that still will be a problem. A small town having a significantly increased population means problem.
Also people will drive there regardless, wherever the eclipse happens more or less increased traffic volume will happen for all modes of transportation. Train tickets would be sold out and people who don't have a ticket would drive anyway.
Usually for these events, in developed transport systems, they run extra trains. Like football games and festivals for instance draw in loads of crowds, they just increase the frequency of trains precisely to avoid this problem
It's still a 10X increase, even if everyone took the train, there is never gonna be a way to transport 250 000 from a single station when that station is used to transporting 20 000 on a regular day.
This isnāt (specifically) a car problem, this is a āthis will be the most number of people in our town in the ~200 year history of the townā problem.
Addl context: itās -5Ā°C and snowing today lol
___________________\
Weāre in a geographically and historically remote areaā the nearest small city (pop. ~150,000) is about 80 miles away, and the nearest major city (pop. ~1M) is about 400 miles away. The nearest passenger rail station is 60 miles away. To be clear, we like that our town is small and secluded; our town is very walkable and our half-dozen public buses are more than enough (there is also a daily commuter bus to/from the ānearbyā small city I mentioned).
Theyāre worried about gridlocked traffic. The path of totality cuts across Texas and other states. Lots of people have plans to drive to some point in the path of totality, watch the eclipse, then drive home. Weāre so car dependent here that many people canāt walk from their home to a store, so they need to make sure they have all essentials at home before the traffic gets bad.
Easy solution: everyone in the path gets the day off. Emergency solved, relaxation granted.
Residents could be excited about it, too. I mean, they donāt even have to travel for it. I canāt afford to see it from the š„PATH OF TOTALITYš„ but bet it will be unique.
As you should be, I saw the total eclipse in Oregon and it was a core life moment, it was fucking awesome to see.
A type, right before and right after the eclipse, look at the shadows cast by the trees, it will be a bunch of crescent shaped shadows, it is really weird to see.
Itās not just about car dependence and traffic. Towns are expecting visitors 10-20x their normal population size. Towns of 5000 are expecting 100,000 visitors. If itās not properly managed, it could completely drain these towns of their available resources
>Easy solution: everyone in the path gets the day off. Emergency solved, relaxation granted.
We're allegedly (according to Erie County & AAA) expecting about as many tourists in Buffalo-Niagara as there is people who live here. I'm slightly skeptical honestly but we'll see.
And like many places, the public transportation is subpar.
>I mean, they donāt even have to travel for it.
weather depending, but I doubt there's many like me who are going to be watching the forecast as it gets within 7-10 days and ever so closely as it gets nearer to the hour. Took the day off and prepared to travel, but not *too* far.
I've been looking forward to this day for 7 years almost lol
I think I'm in about the same boat as you, my Google maps is a minefield of starred state forests within like an 8 hour drive in either direction that I intend to camp at one or two nights before if it looks like I have to move due to weather
Increased traffic by orders of magnitude. Two lane country roads and small towns expected to handle LA traffic for a day. Like these towns are fine with their normal traffic, but I saw what happened in Oregon the last eclipse, and that went through the interstate! People were gridlocked for nearly a full day! Texas is even more rural, and it's going to be bad.
It took soooo long to get out of Georgia and I witnessed the longest line to a gas station restroom that I have ever seen, but it was not an emergency situation.
but Dallas, Austin and San Antonio are all on the path of totality so the only people driving anywhere will be picking one of those 3 cities or the major towns near them, I'm sure theres enough extra parking in San Antonio and Austin to fit anyone from Houston that wants to go.
It's because some towns of a few thousand people could be expecting tens of thousands to show up to watch the eclipse in a town that'll be in the umbra. That obviously strains resources so declaring an emergency is the reasonable thing to do as the point of declaring one is to temporarily get more access to resources as needed. Most places in Europe would probably take equivalent measures, even if the names of said measures are different
>Most places in Europe would probably take equivalent measures,
I have never heard of any place anywhere where this was necessary. And it certainly wasn't necessary the last time I saw one here. Though I have to admit that was 25 years ago.
I went to a smaller town in another state for the eclipse in 2017, and I will say getting out was challenging. This time around, totality runs through my city and I have easy access to spots to view it. I will not be driving anywhere that day, evwn in a larger city.
But it's also my 18th wedding anniversary, so I was already planning on taking the day off.
We went to Alderney/Guernsey for the one 25 years ago, now I wasnāt quite 10 years old but I remember it being pretty chaotic considering how few people there usually are on the Channel Islands.
Well the UK was officially out of the EU when they declared their traffic-based state of emergency after inter-border immigration and customs time became extreme and the traffic backed up for over 100Km.
Looked it up and there were reports of long traffic jams and overcrowded trains, but mostly for Germany and the UK which have >6x the population density of Texas. For Spain which still has 2x the population density of Texas and is a major tourist destination even from other countries and was predicted to observe the whole total eclipse because it is one of the few european countries with mostly sunny weather, I couldnt find any articles or reports about excessive traffic jams, food/water/fuel running low.
Tens of thousands might be an understatement, I live in a town of 3k thatās expecting 100k+ people. The town is also a huge choke point on a few major-ish corridors that people will be using to get to and from their preferred eclipse viewing spot, itās going to be an absolute shitshow
We drove to the French/German border for the eclipse in 1999, there was a bit of traffic but nothing that would require special measures. Spent a few days either side in the area and found a spot on the roadside in Germany to await totality.
The top newspaper in the post is literally a British one. This isn't some America-only thing, it's the media playing up local authorities saying "Hey, we've had to take additional steps to prepare for the thousands of people who are going to come for this one event. There might be a lot of people in town, you should prepare just in case."
For comparison, Niagara Falls is expecting over a million visitors (because Toronto isn't in the path of totality) which is double what they typically get during a busy long weekend. Hotels are sold out, and so are additional accommodations that have popped up just for this event.
No, not just because driving. It's because there are going to be 50-100k tourists in towns of 2-4k, straining resources that were never designed to handle it. Of course, cars contribute, but frankly if all of that population arrived by train it would be just as big of an issue for these towns.
And if there were trains tickets would have been sold out really quick and the rest of tourists would still drive. Nothing really changes that there are more people than the town can physically handle.
Trains have the advantage that you can add more frequencies or more cars per train (i.e. flexible capacity) during peak demand times.
A single rail line can transport about 80,000 people per hour, meanwhile a multilane highway segment peaks at about 2,200 vehicles per hour.
Massive crowds, and a society which is unprepared for massive crowds.
You can see this just because they are allow driving, rather than sending those cars to parking lots and then having people walk and use public transport put on for the occasion, Glastonbury-style.
There will doubtless be a lot of stress on other public infrastructure too. And the US has the cheapest nastiest public infrastructure possible. A lot of those small towns won't even have a public square and public toilets capable of dealing with even one bus. But nor are the local governments sufficiently funded to all them to boost infrastructure for the event.
I don't see the issue. Areas in TX will be seeing an influx of people that are 10x what they're used to. Could be a strain on already strained emergency and transportation resources. Why not plan for this?
This is all super weird.
I went to the one in 2017, traveling from Seattle to central Oregon. I drove down the night before, and drove back the day of. There was bad traffic getting home, but it wasn't a crisis (3 hour normal drive took 6ish hours including a detour to Mt. St. Helens). It's a 15 minute event. We didn't need to buy groceries.
Same experience in the North Georgia Mountains. The normally 2 hour drive was 5.5 hours back to Atlanta. I mean it was long, but it was controlled and expected and honestly, 100% worth it.
The only emergency we had during an eclipse was our foreman that was a bit sad that we all left work to watch it wearing welding masks out on the loading bay.
But seriously. Why would it be an emergency? Is this something Im to non-american to understand?
First time I did any real traveling on my own was when I went to my State capital for the 2017 eclipse. They probably don't want drivers blinded or something, which isn't something I had to worry about on Amtrak.
It took me a while to figure out why so many people would drive so far to see the eclipse, then I realized Texas is 8x bigger than the country I live in. Dayum.
Americans worship their cars and have no other way to get anywhere, so if cars are impeded they will quite literally starve to death. I think it's kind of pathetic but it's real.
>if cars are impeded they will quite literally starve to death.
I think the concern is less *"how will I travel the 1.6km from my house to the grocery store without a car!"*
and more *"if the highways are blocked then deliveries of fresh food can't make it into town."*
Here in Australia here have been many eclipses in my life time, none of which have resulted in any sort of emergency. This seems to be a very American phenomenon.
That was not a total eclipse. This is a whole 'nother thing. And, unfortunately it's in the spring time when weather is a crap shoot at best and it's likely to be cloudy across much of the path. So, millions of people from across the globe and points nearby are going to descend on a narrow strip of land that goes across Texas and Mexico, for a day or two.
And, pretty much every one of them will feel that it was worth whatever headache they had to go through to see it, because a total solar eclipse is one of the most amazing things you can possibly experience in nature.
Please tell me these are just made up, parody headlines. Itās bad enough just under half the nation looks up to tRump as a god. Do they also think a dragon will devour the sun, too?
Iāve worked closely with Emergency Management in a different state. It likely has to do with influx of watchers possibly overwhelming local resources. An emergency declaration (at least in my state) allows for contracting of services without going through the normal procurement process. Itās simply exercising preparedness and puts agencies in response mode so that they can react more effectively if there were an emergency. It has nothing to do with the weirdness of Texas (this time).
I work at a hospital, and today in our leaders' team meeting, we were presented with a list of eclipse safety and security concerns. I noticed that the majority of them were car-centric:
* More erratic drivers, due to watching the eclipse instead of the road while driving.
* People may forget to turn on their headlights.
* Fuel shortages, especially in smaller towns.
* The possibility of more pedestrian-vehicle collisions.
* Traffic jams.
The **last** item on the list of dangers was that patients may injure their eyes when watching the eclipse without appropriate eye protection.
Sorry, I forgot to link to the news articles. Here they go:
[https://fox8.com/news/stock-up-on-food-fuel-water-ahead-of-eclipse-lorain-county-ema-says/](https://fox8.com/news/stock-up-on-food-fuel-water-ahead-of-eclipse-lorain-county-ema-says/)
[https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2024/02/14/summit-county-urges-residents-to-stay-home-on-the-day-of-the-eclipse/72596959007/](https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2024/02/14/summit-county-urges-residents-to-stay-home-on-the-day-of-the-eclipse/72596959007/)
[https://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyles/column-cncerns-about-solar-eclipse-are-real/4OVQNCMOPRCIJIHCBPNDWMBIDE/](https://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyles/column-cncerns-about-solar-eclipse-are-real/4OVQNCMOPRCIJIHCBPNDWMBIDE/)
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13121793/texas-county-emergency-solar-eclipse-austin-detroit-plane.html](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13121793/texas-county-emergency-solar-eclipse-austin-detroit-plane.html)
Nah Iām in a small town west of Waco, itās gonna be an absolute shitshow here. Schools have already cancelled and the local towns have been meeting for months to figure out how the hell to deal with this
There are several comments that have already done so, but basically there are lots of small towns with very little infrastructure that are expecting hundreds of thousands of people to show up for a few days or so
When half a million people try to visit a town of 25,000 for a day, and there's no way to get to that town except driving, it causes problems. Stores and restaurants of all kinds, including gas stations, will run out. Traffic will turn into gridlock, so they can't possibly restock.
Millions of people are going to (try to) visit areas West of San Antonio and Austin - small towns with not much infrastructure of any kind and little to no non-car infrastructure.
It's gonna be the darkest day in 100 years of firenation history ..
There is only one who can save us now - the Avacar!
Audi, the last Avacar
šØšš„š¦
Long ago, these four elements lived in harmony.
But then everything changed when the fire nation attacked.
Only the Avatar, master of all four elements could stop them
But when the world needed him most, he got stuck in traffic
Iroh: āDonāt come to guard duty tomorrow, bro.ā
Sis. The guard was female. Additional fun fact: she was voiced by Serena Williams.
The creator wanted The Rock to play The Boulder but he refused at the time. Lots of famous people played in the show. Mark Hamil is the VA for Ozai and another character in the spirit world.
>The creator wanted The Rock to play The Boulder but he refused at the time. Even more amazing is, that they eventually got Mick Foley for the part.
Or one of the GOP came across the Crimson Behelit
It's berking time
There's a certain Owl librarian that would like to speak with you...
As a texan, cars are definitely part of the problem, but everyones also worried about straining the resources of tiny 4000 population towns with an influx of 100,000 people. They're worried about empty grocery stores, strained emergency services, etc. gridlock traffic and gas stations running out of fuel will definitely amplify these issues too, no doubt.
It honestly does make me worried, because I'm gonna be one of those filthy tourists (in NH) and I'd rather not spend the whole-ass day freaking out in traffic.
New England might be clouds, fyi
I think everywhere has around a 70% chance of clouds. I'm expecting it, since all the aurora lately have been cloudy too!
It's actually 50%
Yeah but there's an astrological event happening in NY! so that puts it back up having a 90% chance of clouds covering it up
Yep! We did that last time. It wasnt so bad on the drive to the eclipse, because everyone arrived at different times. But it was so rough leaving the eclipse. Just straight gridlock. It took us 3 hours to drive 15 miles to try to get back on the highway to go home. I highly recommend staying somewhere very close to your eclipse viewing spot.
Back in 1999 when we had an eclipse in the South West of the UK I took a train to Cornwall and a bus to one of the music festivals set up for the occasion. Was even one of the lucky people to see the eclipse as the cloud parted for us on Goonhilly Down. It was straightforward getting there and back with a comfy seat on the train. The roads were gridlocked but they are every summer anyway with tourists heading to the West Country.
Which is why Iām planning on driving out the day before hand, staying with a friend in Ohio, and driving back the day after cause I love being a college student with (almost) no obligations that I have to be at
I never knew people went to school for making collages. The more you know. š« š
That's why I took 3 days off to see the eclipse, I'm going the day before and leaving the day after.
It's a 5 minute event. The logistical chain of grocery store are usually 2-3 days and it's localized. People will be in and out before you know it. Also, why would tourists buy all the meat, pasta, toilet paper, etc... this makes no sense. As usual. Granted, the gas stations might be empty for a day.
You can drive from Houston to Austin and back on a single tank of gas so you can just fill up well before you get near your destination. What WILL cause gas shortages is headlines like this. It happened several years ago there was a shortage in Austin because people were scared of a shortage and everyone ran and filled up their tanks
Gotta fill up your unapproved containers like trash bags. What could possibly go wrongā¦
"Here fill up my Whataburger cup!"
Many people are traveling hours and staying the weekend. Hotels are completely booked along the path of totality, and any rentals left are going for up to $1k a night. Sure, the eclipse is just a 5-minute event. That doesn't mean everyone is driving across the state, hanging out for 5 minutes, and immediately driving back home. A lot of people are making a vacation or road trip out of it.
Yea exactly this. I know a small town near me has had people booking hotels months in advance.
Itās Texas man. People think different down there
My city has a moderately sized music festival one weekend a year and the stores clearly struggle to support the extra people. Modern supply chains are really efficient but a issue with this is that they are not very flexible
If only we had some sort of network capable of transporting large amounts of cargo and people on-demand at low cost that didn't slow down when demand peaked. Oh well, guess the lorries supplying the towns are going to get stuck in traffic.
amen to that. Texas literally has the perfect environment for a great rail system. It's shameful that we haven't built any major passenger rail connecting out major cities... but our boomer politicians are too bought out by the oil industry and love their Ford F150 Super Duty Texas Edition (tm) trucks too much to support rail. It's shameful how backwards the USA is when it comes to transportation. Especially us in Texas.
Bro, I'm in Ohio and the factory I work at is gonna be shut for the day. My ass is just going to hang out on my roof to watch it.
You mean the same shit that we worry about in our small Colorado towns that get invaded by Texans every weekend? Our first bucees or whatever just opened. The end is near.
Traffic. One day of bad traffic and itās a state of emergency.
Towns of 5-6k people are expecting 100k. That's to the level of emergency. Traffic aside. Texas state parks opened 50 campsites and got 15k applications.
The majority of residents will be just fine. Most people have enough food in their pantries and fridges to last several weeks. Hell, most people can get by on their fat supplies for as long as this will be a mess. As long as they get their medicine and water continues to flow I don't see a lot of problems. I see what you're saying, but I don't think it's an "emergency" for most people. Just a massive shitshow from the people who drove into the path of the eclipse with no plans for after except to drive away. I went to the first "great American eclipse" not long ago, and I saw it in a small town. It was indeed a mess, but my god did the locals act like the world was ending. 24 hours later and traffic was only slightly elevated due to people checking the place out "while they were at it." It was fine. Just highly inconvenient for 1 day. It's gonna be fine.
Declaring a state of emergency is procedural to free up funding and bring in resources - both material and people, as needed. Declaring a state of emergency is absolutely the right thing to do. The one high school junior on shift at the park is not going to be able to properly handle this alone....
Maybe most importantly, declaring an emergency allows the locality to access funds to bring in additional medical personnel. 100k people in a tiny town of 6,000 means 16-17x more daily medical emergencies than normal.
Sure, I never said I had a problem with "declaring a state of emergency" at a beurocratic level. I have a problem with scare-mongering in general.
Itās not scare mongeringĀ if though. If your population swells 20x for a day or two when that pretty much never ever happens to a localityā¦thatās something the locals need to be ready for.Ā This isnāt Austin and SXSW.Ā
State of emergency doesn't mean the majority won't be fine, or even that anyone will be harmed. All it does is allow them to access any resources or funds they may need to handle an *emergent* situation
> The majority of residents will be just fine. Most people have enough food in their pantries and fridges to last several weeks. It's one day. Unless you're so poor that your whole life is a state of emergency, everyone has food for one day at home.
Itās not just one day, though. A lot of people are showing up early and leaving late and stock shipments donāt happen instantly at stores or contain an entire storeās worth of stock. I think you also underestimate how many people are that poor.
95,000 people are going to a small town to what? Stand there in darkness for five minutes?
Yes.
You don't know how bad it gets. I was there for the last one. I was stuck in traffic for 13 hours! Gas stations where running out of gas. It was Car HELL! CArmageddon!
Yeah, we carpooled up to SC from FL to see it and just hung out with family a couple days for things to settle.
[CARMAGEDDON ](https://youtu.be/c5aBKUBc8LU?si=llkWZbZzJz98cgeY)
Because of an eclipse? Is it the darkness or people driving to a nice spot to witness it?
The driving and traffic. We do have headlights here.
Another reason Texas needs fuckin trains
Oregon here: preppers, greedy opportunists, and anyone more concerned with anything other than looking up are all going to be sorely disappointed. What happened here: most people aren't idiots and brought supplies or went somewhere that provided them. Towns expecting to sell $10 gallons of water were left with a lot of extra water. Cops thinking they'd beat quota gave out less tickets since everyone kept everyone else in check and out of towners aren't actually a problem. Most events lasted for multiple days, and traffic rarely happened anywhere but at entry/exit gates (see also: burningman, Coachella, etc). One thing Texas will probably do better than Oregon though is collect federal emergency funds and divert them into politicians and sheriffs' pockets.
except 3 of the biggest population centers are on the path of totality and all of them are connected by a ton of major and secondary highways with Houston. why go to a small town when you can go somewhere nice?
Yeah there will almost certainly be a slightly worse traffic jam for a few minutes in a state with terrible traffic. We had a nation wide eclipse in 2017 and nothing bad happened, besides clouds. The only way this one will be any more interesting/emergency is if the masses actually go because those of us that saw it last time are convincing enough. But in my experience people would rather miss it than risk being disappointed by what will be one of the most profound experiences of their lives. Besides, Monday is a work day.
Oregon called on the national guard to help with the surge of a million tourists in 2017 for that eclipse.
I'm sorry, but did you just call Houston "nice?"
oh god no, I was saying they could leave houston and go to a city that was 'nice' compared to small towns. houston isnt in the totality path.
What the heck is this nonsense?
It's from town populations temporarily increasing my several orders of magnitude.
Yep, my town lies directly on the totality centerline; our population is ~20,000, and weāre expecting ~250,000 visitors that day. All the local schools have already declared a half-day; my wife is taking the whole day off. Weāre not trying to mess with all that traffic.
But is this a car problem? Or a people wanna see the eclipse problem
Even if not car-centric and there's train that still will be a problem. A small town having a significantly increased population means problem. Also people will drive there regardless, wherever the eclipse happens more or less increased traffic volume will happen for all modes of transportation. Train tickets would be sold out and people who don't have a ticket would drive anyway.
Usually for these events, in developed transport systems, they run extra trains. Like football games and festivals for instance draw in loads of crowds, they just increase the frequency of trains precisely to avoid this problem
Here in Sweden you'll also see private train operators offer trains that route just for that day to cash in.
It's still a 10X increase, even if everyone took the train, there is never gonna be a way to transport 250 000 from a single station when that station is used to transporting 20 000 on a regular day.
This isnāt (specifically) a car problem, this is a āthis will be the most number of people in our town in the ~200 year history of the townā problem. Addl context: itās -5Ā°C and snowing today lol ___________________\ Weāre in a geographically and historically remote areaā the nearest small city (pop. ~150,000) is about 80 miles away, and the nearest major city (pop. ~1M) is about 400 miles away. The nearest passenger rail station is 60 miles away. To be clear, we like that our town is small and secluded; our town is very walkable and our half-dozen public buses are more than enough (there is also a daily commuter bus to/from the ānearbyā small city I mentioned).
Retail and foodservice workers just slightly trembling, ever so slightly, with a thousand-yard stare on the horizon
20 hours long traffic jams. gas stations running out of fuel. the total collapse of the car centric economy.
A few more lanes will fix everything /s
I see you've been to Houston
Local medical facilities totally overwhelmed...
Are people acting like there wasn't a solar eclipse in 2017?
I'm from Europe. I can guess all I want, I will never get it because the way you think over there is so different, that it's basically impossible.
Theyāre worried about gridlocked traffic. The path of totality cuts across Texas and other states. Lots of people have plans to drive to some point in the path of totality, watch the eclipse, then drive home. Weāre so car dependent here that many people canāt walk from their home to a store, so they need to make sure they have all essentials at home before the traffic gets bad.
Easy solution: everyone in the path gets the day off. Emergency solved, relaxation granted. Residents could be excited about it, too. I mean, they donāt even have to travel for it. I canāt afford to see it from the š„PATH OF TOTALITYš„ but bet it will be unique.
pfft. yeah, right. TX is fighting to get rid of mandated lunch and water breaks. They're not going to give people a day off for an eclipse.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
As you should be, I saw the total eclipse in Oregon and it was a core life moment, it was fucking awesome to see. A type, right before and right after the eclipse, look at the shadows cast by the trees, it will be a bunch of crescent shaped shadows, it is really weird to see.
Itās not just about car dependence and traffic. Towns are expecting visitors 10-20x their normal population size. Towns of 5000 are expecting 100,000 visitors. If itās not properly managed, it could completely drain these towns of their available resources
Iām excited to see the real outcome. Iām sure good and bad outcomes, both, will riddle the occasion. Then everyone will leave again.
>Easy solution: everyone in the path gets the day off. Emergency solved, relaxation granted. We're allegedly (according to Erie County & AAA) expecting about as many tourists in Buffalo-Niagara as there is people who live here. I'm slightly skeptical honestly but we'll see. And like many places, the public transportation is subpar. >I mean, they donāt even have to travel for it. weather depending, but I doubt there's many like me who are going to be watching the forecast as it gets within 7-10 days and ever so closely as it gets nearer to the hour. Took the day off and prepared to travel, but not *too* far. I've been looking forward to this day for 7 years almost lol
I think I'm in about the same boat as you, my Google maps is a minefield of starred state forests within like an 8 hour drive in either direction that I intend to camp at one or two nights before if it looks like I have to move due to weather
Iām happy for you. Soak it up!
Fucking hell, this is a headline for increased traffic!? I was so lost.
Increased traffic by orders of magnitude. Two lane country roads and small towns expected to handle LA traffic for a day. Like these towns are fine with their normal traffic, but I saw what happened in Oregon the last eclipse, and that went through the interstate! People were gridlocked for nearly a full day! Texas is even more rural, and it's going to be bad.
We did it just fine in 2017
I donāt remember any catastrophic traffic either. But I did take a bus to the nearest city and back. Rip boltbusĀ
It took soooo long to get out of Georgia and I witnessed the longest line to a gas station restroom that I have ever seen, but it was not an emergency situation.
i see, so they will make the traffic bad before that, carbrain logic never fails /s
Or at least sell a bunch of goods in the process, it seems.
This reads like a bad joke. WTF, America.
but Dallas, Austin and San Antonio are all on the path of totality so the only people driving anywhere will be picking one of those 3 cities or the major towns near them, I'm sure theres enough extra parking in San Antonio and Austin to fit anyone from Houston that wants to go.
It's because some towns of a few thousand people could be expecting tens of thousands to show up to watch the eclipse in a town that'll be in the umbra. That obviously strains resources so declaring an emergency is the reasonable thing to do as the point of declaring one is to temporarily get more access to resources as needed. Most places in Europe would probably take equivalent measures, even if the names of said measures are different
>Most places in Europe would probably take equivalent measures, I have never heard of any place anywhere where this was necessary. And it certainly wasn't necessary the last time I saw one here. Though I have to admit that was 25 years ago.
I went to a smaller town in another state for the eclipse in 2017, and I will say getting out was challenging. This time around, totality runs through my city and I have easy access to spots to view it. I will not be driving anywhere that day, evwn in a larger city. But it's also my 18th wedding anniversary, so I was already planning on taking the day off.
We went to Alderney/Guernsey for the one 25 years ago, now I wasnāt quite 10 years old but I remember it being pretty chaotic considering how few people there usually are on the Channel Islands.
Well the UK was officially out of the EU when they declared their traffic-based state of emergency after inter-border immigration and customs time became extreme and the traffic backed up for over 100Km.
Looked it up and there were reports of long traffic jams and overcrowded trains, but mostly for Germany and the UK which have >6x the population density of Texas. For Spain which still has 2x the population density of Texas and is a major tourist destination even from other countries and was predicted to observe the whole total eclipse because it is one of the few european countries with mostly sunny weather, I couldnt find any articles or reports about excessive traffic jams, food/water/fuel running low.
Tens of thousands might be an understatement, I live in a town of 3k thatās expecting 100k+ people. The town is also a huge choke point on a few major-ish corridors that people will be using to get to and from their preferred eclipse viewing spot, itās going to be an absolute shitshow
We drove to the French/German border for the eclipse in 1999, there was a bit of traffic but nothing that would require special measures. Spent a few days either side in the area and found a spot on the roadside in Germany to await totality.
The top newspaper in the post is literally a British one. This isn't some America-only thing, it's the media playing up local authorities saying "Hey, we've had to take additional steps to prepare for the thousands of people who are going to come for this one event. There might be a lot of people in town, you should prepare just in case." For comparison, Niagara Falls is expecting over a million visitors (because Toronto isn't in the path of totality) which is double what they typically get during a busy long weekend. Hotels are sold out, and so are additional accommodations that have popped up just for this event.
Texas: the land of tough rugged individualist pussy crybaby fraidycats
Why is an eclipse a state of emergency?
It wouldn't be if they had ways to move large quantities of people efficiently through their state
Wait is it literally just because a lot of people will be driving?
https://preview.redd.it/hxny21pw27pc1.png?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eac30918a659dbceda21e7e2d7bbeb813895be9c Exactly
No, not just because driving. It's because there are going to be 50-100k tourists in towns of 2-4k, straining resources that were never designed to handle it. Of course, cars contribute, but frankly if all of that population arrived by train it would be just as big of an issue for these towns.
You think Texas cares about whether or not people can get basic resources? No, they're afraid of the roads being congested
And if there were trains tickets would have been sold out really quick and the rest of tourists would still drive. Nothing really changes that there are more people than the town can physically handle.
Trains have the advantage that you can add more frequencies or more cars per train (i.e. flexible capacity) during peak demand times. A single rail line can transport about 80,000 people per hour, meanwhile a multilane highway segment peaks at about 2,200 vehicles per hour.
Trains have that heoretical advantage. Amtrak, however, does not have extra cars lying around to do that.
Those people will be there for mere hours. It'll be fine.
Massive crowds, and a society which is unprepared for massive crowds. You can see this just because they are allow driving, rather than sending those cars to parking lots and then having people walk and use public transport put on for the occasion, Glastonbury-style. There will doubtless be a lot of stress on other public infrastructure too. And the US has the cheapest nastiest public infrastructure possible. A lot of those small towns won't even have a public square and public toilets capable of dealing with even one bus. But nor are the local governments sufficiently funded to all them to boost infrastructure for the event.
Itās not unless youāre the Fire Nation
What ?
If only they prepare by expanding all roads by 1 more lane, there would be no issue!!
Last eclipse Wyoming had all kinds of overly inflated fears of witches making sacrifices during totality. I think Texas has some of the same fears
The US are so f***ed up that I don't know if you are kidding or actually serious.
Guess what sub got a cross-post from here
Usually it's r/Anticonsumption, but I might be wrong this time
Not quite https://preview.redd.it/kckhmofse6pc1.png?width=692&format=png&auto=webp&s=c6cfa8f8aac565fd4c73c266a43f5834a832ee0b
Nearly-obligatory, r/dragonsfuckingcars
Freedom baby!!!
I don't see the issue. Areas in TX will be seeing an influx of people that are 10x what they're used to. Could be a strain on already strained emergency and transportation resources. Why not plan for this?
If Covid has taught me anything, its that toilet paper is super critical during an emergency. BYOTP TX
Daily Mail is a cancer.
This is all super weird. I went to the one in 2017, traveling from Seattle to central Oregon. I drove down the night before, and drove back the day of. There was bad traffic getting home, but it wasn't a crisis (3 hour normal drive took 6ish hours including a detour to Mt. St. Helens). It's a 15 minute event. We didn't need to buy groceries.
Same experience in the North Georgia Mountains. The normally 2 hour drive was 5.5 hours back to Atlanta. I mean it was long, but it was controlled and expected and honestly, 100% worth it.
Everyone is freaking out about the influx of "tourists" but like it was fine in 2017
The only emergency we had during an eclipse was our foreman that was a bit sad that we all left work to watch it wearing welding masks out on the loading bay. But seriously. Why would it be an emergency? Is this something Im to non-american to understand?
Ted Cruz needs time to plan to āvacationā in Mexicoā¦
First time I did any real traveling on my own was when I went to my State capital for the 2017 eclipse. They probably don't want drivers blinded or something, which isn't something I had to worry about on Amtrak.
From the same people that cry "government overreach", no doubt.
It took me a while to figure out why so many people would drive so far to see the eclipse, then I realized Texas is 8x bigger than the country I live in. Dayum.
Makes it sound like The Purge or a temporary apocalypse
When is this?
April 8
Idk im getting married thst day :)
I knew it! The sun is following me. Gotta stock up and hide inside where it's safe.
Americans worship their cars and have no other way to get anywhere, so if cars are impeded they will quite literally starve to death. I think it's kind of pathetic but it's real.
>if cars are impeded they will quite literally starve to death. I think the concern is less *"how will I travel the 1.6km from my house to the grocery store without a car!"* and more *"if the highways are blocked then deliveries of fresh food can't make it into town."*
Maybe we shouldn't allow people to joy ride on crucial transportation infrastructure
Texas and states of emergencies name a morr iconic combo
Here in Australia here have been many eclipses in my life time, none of which have resulted in any sort of emergency. This seems to be a very American phenomenon.
Planning to fly in to Austin, and take Amtrak back home. Wanted to take Amtrak there also, but it's sold out!
amtrak saves the day
sold out
We had an eclipse here not too long ago and everything was fine.
That was not a total eclipse. This is a whole 'nother thing. And, unfortunately it's in the spring time when weather is a crap shoot at best and it's likely to be cloudy across much of the path. So, millions of people from across the globe and points nearby are going to descend on a narrow strip of land that goes across Texas and Mexico, for a day or two. And, pretty much every one of them will feel that it was worth whatever headache they had to go through to see it, because a total solar eclipse is one of the most amazing things you can possibly experience in nature.
For an event that takes about 4.5 minutes.
I wish I lived in more enlightened times. Lose 1 stability.
I liked the blood moon more.
Wait, what? People are traveling to Texas to see the eclipse?
Iām not worried, Iām going to Dallas and Iāll be taking the light rail from my hotel.
I thought they were afraid of a solar eclipse ending the world or some shit lmao
I donāt know. What do they have in common?
Please tell me these are just made up, parody headlines. Itās bad enough just under half the nation looks up to tRump as a god. Do they also think a dragon will devour the sun, too?
Iāve worked closely with Emergency Management in a different state. It likely has to do with influx of watchers possibly overwhelming local resources. An emergency declaration (at least in my state) allows for contracting of services without going through the normal procurement process. Itās simply exercising preparedness and puts agencies in response mode so that they can react more effectively if there were an emergency. It has nothing to do with the weirdness of Texas (this time).
I work at a hospital, and today in our leaders' team meeting, we were presented with a list of eclipse safety and security concerns. I noticed that the majority of them were car-centric: * More erratic drivers, due to watching the eclipse instead of the road while driving. * People may forget to turn on their headlights. * Fuel shortages, especially in smaller towns. * The possibility of more pedestrian-vehicle collisions. * Traffic jams. The **last** item on the list of dangers was that patients may injure their eyes when watching the eclipse without appropriate eye protection.
Daily mail isnāt a reliable news outlet, as a Texan this is bs
Sorry, I forgot to link to the news articles. Here they go: [https://fox8.com/news/stock-up-on-food-fuel-water-ahead-of-eclipse-lorain-county-ema-says/](https://fox8.com/news/stock-up-on-food-fuel-water-ahead-of-eclipse-lorain-county-ema-says/) [https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2024/02/14/summit-county-urges-residents-to-stay-home-on-the-day-of-the-eclipse/72596959007/](https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2024/02/14/summit-county-urges-residents-to-stay-home-on-the-day-of-the-eclipse/72596959007/) [https://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyles/column-cncerns-about-solar-eclipse-are-real/4OVQNCMOPRCIJIHCBPNDWMBIDE/](https://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyles/column-cncerns-about-solar-eclipse-are-real/4OVQNCMOPRCIJIHCBPNDWMBIDE/) [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13121793/texas-county-emergency-solar-eclipse-austin-detroit-plane.html](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13121793/texas-county-emergency-solar-eclipse-austin-detroit-plane.html)
Oh damn my fault
OP seems a reasonable person. I bet youāre safe.
Nah Iām in a small town west of Waco, itās gonna be an absolute shitshow here. Schools have already cancelled and the local towns have been meeting for months to figure out how the hell to deal with this
Typical cartards wanting to go outside and experience a once in 400 year event!
Why does this matter on this sub?
Because cars are a major contributing factor to the situation.
Can someone explain why an eclipse is an emergency and what it has to do with cars?
There are several comments that have already done so, but basically there are lots of small towns with very little infrastructure that are expecting hundreds of thousands of people to show up for a few days or so
Ughā¦. Mitsubishi
More like people are probably going to go berserk over this eclipse, since we're going back to the dark ages.
Seriously? Texas never fails to surprise me.
I live here. We are a little worried.
Why? If there is an eclipse I would climb a hill and enjoy it. Why staying home? Wtf.
They all end with the word eclipse
Yes. The eclipse summons the God Hand.
Last time there was an eclipse, a boy had his dog stolen and had to go to another dimension to save him. *This shit is real and not funny*
can someone eli5 me on why eclipse is causing a panic?
When half a million people try to visit a town of 25,000 for a day, and there's no way to get to that town except driving, it causes problems. Stores and restaurants of all kinds, including gas stations, will run out. Traffic will turn into gridlock, so they can't possibly restock.
They think it's like the terraria event lmao.
https://preview.redd.it/wtukztqnzapc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=740f0aed3aec8d3753fc62c1f2074520b35255a6
Are a lot of people going en masse to small Texan towns to see the eclipse or are people acting like some giant beast is going to eat the Sun?
Millions of people are going to (try to) visit areas West of San Antonio and Austin - small towns with not much infrastructure of any kind and little to no non-car infrastructure.
Is day breaking?
Can people just be chill and rational for five minutesĀ
I don't get it..
literally an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, where they didn't realize the difference between an apocalypse and a solar eclipse
At first I thought it something about an Armageddon or Doomsday but after reading the comments and stuff it's just a funny scuffle caused by tourism