Ignas Balauskas almost missed it.
He bought a plane ticket to the United States from his home in Lithuania about a month ago. After a series of flight delays, he landed in Dallas around midnight in preparation for a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse.
“If it wasn’t for the total solar eclipse, it probably wouldn’t have come to Dallas,” Barauskas said. “It looks like it’s going to be a grand event as the sun hides during the day.”
On Monday morning, he took public transportation — his rental cars in the city were booked months in advance — to White Rock Lake in Dallas, arriving just before the partial solar eclipse began. He and millions of other umbraphiles, or eclipse chasers, had been worrying about the dark forecast of thick clouds all morning.
However, just before the total solar eclipse began, the clouds parted. The sight of the sun’s shining corona plunged the city into evening-like darkness for four minutes.
“Everyone was screaming,” Barauskas said. “Like a concert.”
Balauskas was one of millions of people who traveled Monday along a path that stretches from western Mexico to Newfoundland, mostly under persistently cloudy skies.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area is the largest metropolitan area in the path of Monday’s total solar eclipse, with North Texas a major destination and a potential headache for local residents. The cloudy weather made me wonder if I should change my plans at the last minute and head for clear skies, but it was generally sunny across most of North Texas.
“It exceeded all expectations,” Barauskas said.
small town prepares
Early estimates suggested that more than 1 million tourists would visit Texas for the eclipse. The state closed highways in the path of the eclipse to heavy vehicles throughout the day Monday. Several counties along the line issued disaster declarations to free up resources for additional law enforcement and other emergency services.
Ennis, a small town of about 23,000 people 35 miles south of Dallas, is located on the center line of the eclipse. City officials said the celestial event is expected to attract up to 150,000 visitors and will double the number of ambulances and paramedics on standby.
City Administrator Marty Nelson said Ennis started planning the event about two years ago, when City Hall received attention from NASA scientists and other experts about the upcoming attention. He said he started receiving calls warning him about this.
“I’ve seen solar eclipses before, but it was a little overwhelming,” said Ashley Colunga, the city’s marketing and communications director. “We started really digging into the research, and we were like, oh, I see, this isn’t an everyday partial solar eclipse. This is an anomaly.”
“Oh, and by the way, your little town happens to be on the center line,” Nelson said.
Spring usually means another big event for Ennis. The state’s iconic bluebonnet wildflowers bloom, drawing thousands of day trippers and landscape photographers. Bluebonnets are now at their peak bloom, creating a double whammy for tourism and transportation.
“April is a crazy busy month with the Bluebonnet Trail, the local farmers market opening, and then the Bluebonnet Festival,” Nelson said. “And now we have a total solar eclipse that will probably add 100,000 people.”
Opportunity to educate in wonder
While other residents of North Texas were slow to realize the potential for disruption from a total solar eclipse, researchers at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas had been preparing since 2019.
“Two years ago when we were booking hotel rooms, people thought we were crazy,” said Linda Silver, the museum’s CEO. . Perot’s ticketed solar eclipse event sold out last year, and the museum expected about 7,000 people to show up on Monday, with another 35,000 at a nearby park.
Silver said the museum has ordered 1-meter eclipse glasses and has been distributing them to schools, community centers and nursing homes around the area in recent weeks. The museum, with support from Carnegie Science, flew in about 30 astronomers, many of them bilingual, to help with educational presentations and answer questions about the once-in-a-lifetime event. .
“This is an opportunity for everyone to participate in science,” Silver said. “You rarely realize that, oh! For a moment.”
Caitlin Ray, an 11th grade student from Houston, was visiting Southern Methodist University’s campus on Monday, just in time for totality. On campus, students and families from surrounding areas filled the campus’s main quad, staring into the sky. Ray wants to study astronomy, and he is excited about the scientific possibilities the eclipse brings, he said.
“I’m especially looking forward to looking at the coronavirus and seeing if it circulates,” Ray said. “If that’s the case, it means there’s a lot of solar activity going on, and there’s a lot of research to be learned from that.”
Clouds blocked the sun for most of the partial eclipse, but like the rest of North Texas, the clouds parted just before totality. With sounds of “oohs” and “aahs,” people cheered and chanted “God bless America.”
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“This was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen,” said Nikhil Kathuria, a third-year student at SMU studying finance.
Only a few school districts in the area, including Ennis, closed their campuses on Monday, but most said they were planning eclipse-themed classes that day. Classes were in session as usual in Arlington, between Dallas and Fort Worth, but that didn’t stop the Williams family from taking a day off.
Kendarius, 16, Genilia, 16, and Geniya, 10, had won their spots at the outdoor amphitheater hours before the eclipse began.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Kendarius said. “So what happens to the birds in the sky?”
A momentary break in the clouds caused many people around to cheer. It’s unclear how long the sun will last, but the Williamses weren’t worried.
“It’s a first for everyone,” Kendarius said.
“I encourage you to experience it for yourself,” Genilia said.
At the nearby University of Texas at Arlington, home to one of the state’s three largest planetariums, McKenna Dowd had a backup plan in case clouds made viewing the eclipse impossible. Dowd was his program coordinator for the planetarium and had programmed projections to recreate a cloudless daytime sky outdoors.
“It’s the next best thing,” Dowd said. “I hope the clouds clear up. I’m trying not to think about it.”
She said her team had been planning to “solarbrate” the eclipse for more than a year. Outside, UTA scientists were setting up telescopes and people were handing out eclipse glasses and moon pie desserts. No matter the weather, Dowd said it’s a chance for the community to share a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“We all share the same star, the same sun, the same moon. We can share that community,” Dowd said. “No matter what happens today.”
bet on the weather and win
As Eric Ruud looked outside Monday morning, he worried he would have to find a new place to watch the star show.
He traveled approximately 1,400 miles (2,250 km) from his home in Pocatello, Idaho, to see the rural totality of Greenville, Texas. With clouds expected to cover much of Texas, Ruud wondered if he should get in his car and start driving toward calmer skies.
“We’re going to be as flexible as possible,” Ruud said. “I can’t wait to see it again.”
Ruud teaches high school biology in Pocatello. As a child, he read issues of National Geographic, learned about total solar eclipses from them, and hoped to one day see a total solar eclipse. In 2017, his hometown reached 98% of the previous U.S. solar eclipse. He drove 50 miles north to see the total solar eclipse.
“I was very moved by it,” Ruud said. “Seeing the whole thing is very different from seeing the 99%.”
He and his wife missed the last solar eclipse, but decided not to attend the celebration in Greenville. The clouds were thicker than in Dallas, but it was clear enough to see parts of it.
“It was unbelievable,” Ruud said. “It’s hard to explain in words.”
Taylor Good, reporting from Dallas, contributed. reportare doing
