Northeast Ohio communities are issuing warnings about the crowds expected during a total solar eclipse this spring. Many places in the path of totality on April 8 are bracing for a drastic influx of visitors, which could tie up traffic and clog lines of communication.
It wasn’t something Erin Barnes anticipated when she extended a “girls weekend” in Nashville back in 2017 to watch that total solar eclipse.
“I will say, we were 20 years old at the time, we planned poorly. Let’s just get that out of the way,” she laughed. “We thought the solar eclipse would be like the cherry on top of it. And in some ways it was because it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
The group enjoyed experiencing the total solar eclipse. But what they didn’t enjoy was the traffic backed up for miles when they left to return home.
“You feel like you’re trapped in this Honda Civic for an unknown amount of time at that point because we had no idea how long it would actually take us to get home,” Barnes recalled.