By: PC EMA Office
On Monday April 8th, at 3:10 pm we got to experience a once in a life time event in Northwest Ohio, a Total Solar Eclipse. The aww inspiring event was viewed by millions of people across the United States and here, in Ohio. The weather was the big question and mother nature came through, with what cloud cover there was, they were very thin clouds.
People from around the area had family & friend gathering parties, workers taking time out of their busy day to observe history in the making and visitors from other parts of the region, that was not in the totality of the eclipse came to watch. It is going to be truly hard to estimate the number of people that came to Paulding County, it was expected to be an estimated 3,500 to 5,000. From the conversations that I had with communities and the observation from law enforcement, those numbers were high. Perhaps 2,500 maybe, EMA Director Edward Bohn stated.
The state of Ohio Tourism reported that the booking of all Hotel/Motels rooms in Northwestern Ohio for Sunday night was 87 percent and 69 percent of the rooms were booked for Monday night. The volume of traffic in the region was witnessed to be far more than on a normal Monday, heading south and east by 11:00 am and certainly, following the Solar Eclipse being over, heading north. One individual estimated he passed nearly two hundred vehicles on St. Rt. 49, just between Antwerp and Hicksville, Ohio. Ross Laukhuf, superintendent of the Paulding County ODOT, reported much more traffic on St. Rt. 49, County Road 87 and St. RT. 637/Co. Rd. 143, than US 127. He felt it was due to the US 127 bridge being closed, just north of the county line, in Defiance County.
“The preparation for the Total Solar Eclipse was in the works since 2021 for Paulding County,” stated Director Bohn. “1st Responders, school systems, government agencies, the Paulding County libraries, and other groups and organizations, planned for “what ifs” during those meetings and I am thrilled to say, it was uneventful,” Bohn stated. The fire departments and EMS agencies, in the county were staffed or had their members able to respond. Law Enforcement agencies were manned and positioned in the county and villages. ODOT had crews available with fuel cans, if needed, to assist motorists if they ran out of gas.
Communications was a big unknown, so the Ohio EMA had the counties in the path of totality, have a back-up system in place. The Paulding County Amateur Radio club had their communications trailer staffed and up and running, just in case, as well as, their club members available throughout the county. The state of Ohio did not have any radio communication issues as well as the cellphones worked as normal.
It will take a while to estimate the financial impact the Total Solar Eclipse had on the state of Ohio. An estimated nationwide, based on the inflation rate of the 2017 economic impact and the fact it covered more states, this time around, of nearly $6 Billion Dollars. The fact is, young or old, the witnessing of this event will be a memory of a life time. The reaction of people and their comments on social media, the news reports and conversations with people in and around the area, they were glad, they had the opportunity to view the eclipse.
