BUFFALO, N.Y. — April 8 is less than two months away and some very serious planning is already underway for the upcoming Solar Eclipse.
We have told you about a lot of the logistics like safety glasses, viewing spots, open venues, hotel rooms booked up, and even schools closed.
But for law enforcement, it is yet another challenge they must deal with.
Law Enforcement and the community all know its coming with excitement for many here in Western New York about being smack dab in the path of totality.
But for the state police and other law enforcement and emergency responders it is also awareness of what could happen.
New York State Trooper James O'Callaghan told 2 On Your Side "We're trying to get numbers on an estimation of how many people will be here - could be a million, could be half a million. We're looking at that. We're getting those numbers from previous eclipses in different areas."
That might be places like Oregon in August 2017 when they experienced masses of people with some reports that it took more than 20 hours to untangle some of traffic gridlock in some areas.
Hopefully that will not be the case in this area.
O'Callaghan notes "What we've seen in the past at other locations - you know people pull off in unsafe areas. Could be on the Thruway, could be on a side road, it could be at an intersection - elongated looking at the eclipse and that we have not happen. We wann make sure that people are safe as possible during that two hour span of time."
He adds "The totality of darkness will be about four minutes just after quarter after three so what we wanna make sure is people aren't driving while looking at something like that, pulling off on the road in an unsafe area and get hit by a car."
Tragically that actually happened in Kentucky in 2017.
The trooper even worries that people wearing the safety glasses with the very dark lenses might have their vision somewhat obscured and not clearly see moving vehicles or obstacles.
Of course just like the Grand Canyon with past eclipses, they know Niagara Falls will be a hot viewing spot with hotel rooms booked up. O'Callaghan says "It's one of the wonders of the world and then you add the eclipse on top of that. it is a pretty cool area to be in for this. So all of us together with our meetings and information - we're able to at least compile a somewhat accurate measure of event. "
So they will depend on public messaging to get the message out. "We're working with New York State DOT, the Thruway Authority, all of those messaging boards, obviously media, social media and things like that to put that out there. But also you have to look at the state parks or different venues."
It's not clear yet if any of area highways will be restricted.
We know that Buffalo Police and Fire held a recent eclipse training session for their members last week.
Next week Erie County officials will discuss it in depth during a special session at the convention center.
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