The Niagara Falls area of Canada has declared a state of emergency just ahead of the April 8 solar eclipse. No, it’s not because they are expecting some sort of cosmic disaster to unfold — although you never know, right? — but due to the hundreds of thousands of tourists that are expected to pay a visit to the area to witness the once-in-a-lifetime event. And that, in and of itself, can lead to widespread chaos if anything weird does goes down, so declaring a state of emergency does not seem like a bad idea.
Check out more details from The Epoch Times:
The Ontario, Canada, region of Niagara Falls declared the emergency ahead of the April 8 eclipse, which will be the first to touch the province since 1979. National Geographic has said that Niagara Falls is one of the best places to see it. The Ontario city has the same name as Niagara Falls, New York, which is on the other side of Canada’s border with the United States.
The city is in the path of totality, which will receive no solar rays for a few minutes on April 8 as the moon blocks the sun. Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati said in March that he expects the most visitors his city has ever seen in a single day.
Mr. Diodati told media outlets that up to 1 million people may travel to the city to see the eclipse. “Clear weather is the cherry on top,” he added. “I’m just keeping fingers crossed and hoping.”
The declaration was first announced last week and puts into motion specific planning tools to help ensure they are fully prepared for the possibility of traffic jams, heavier demands on emergency services, and cell networks being overloaded.
And Niagara Falls isn’t the only city that’s attempting to put measures in place to mitigate the possible chaos coming about as a result of the eclipse.
New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has issued a warning to travelers coming into the area to see the cosmic event unfold that there will be extremely high amounts of traffic. Hochul also announced that lane closures and construction is to be halted before the eclipse.
“New York is ready to welcome millions of visitors, and my administration has been working hard to ensure everyone in the path of the eclipse can safely enjoy this rare event,” Hochul stated last week. “I encourage anyone traveling for this experience to plan on arriving early to their destination and staying late to enjoy all of what our state has to offer.”
Kathy Garcia, New York’s director of state operations also said in the statement, “We love that so many people are planning to come here to experience the eclipse, but we also don’t want everyone to spend most of their trip stuck in traffic.”
Back on March 27, the Federal Aviation Administration went on to issue a warning of its own to folks saying there could potentially be travel delays ahead of and during the eclipse.
“While most travelers are heading to their favorite vacation destinations, a significant number of travelers are heading to various states to witness ‘The Great North American Eclipse’ on Monday, April 8,” the FAA said.
It then went on to add, “there may be a higher traffic volume than normal anticipated at airports along the path of the eclipse” and stated that travelers “should anticipate delays during peak traffic periods.”
The eclipse will reach Mexico’s Pacific coast in the morning, cut diagonally across the United States from Texas to Maine, and exit in eastern Canada by late afternoon. Most of the rest of the continent will see a partial eclipse.
“The further south you are, the better the long-term weather prospects are probably going to be,” Fred Espenak, a former astrophysicist from NASA, told ABC News on March 31. “But we really can’t tell on eclipse day because I’ve seen satellite maps over the past 20 years of data taken during April 8. And every place along the eclipse path is clear on some days and cloudy on others. More frequently, it’s clear in the southern states versus the northern.”
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